The climate disaster is going to be compounded by humans’ disastrous response. Imagine if you were in a burning building and there were marketing teams trying to convince you “that’s not fire!” and a government that was deeply invested in throwing burning fossil fuels about, with abandon.
I’ve mentioned this before, but I am absolutely appalled by the prospect that humanity’s collective response to the climate crisis is foreshadowed by its response to the Covid-19 pandemic. In every way, the pandemic is a bagatelle compared to climate change – yet, humanity utterly screwed the pooch on that, especially the vaunted “world leader”, the United States of America. The US response was particularly bad – unnecessarily so to the tune of perhaps 300,000 deaths – thanks to a science-denying establishment that downplayed the severity of the outbreak until it was too late to do anything but suffer.
If that’s the paradigmatic response of humanity to climate change, we can not just expect inaction – we can expect denial and disinformation. What is the environmental catastrophe’s equivalent of Hydroxychloroquine?
Here’s an example of what’s in store for us: [tc]
HOUSTON, Jan. 17, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) – Media Advisory – TC Energy Corporation (TSX, NYSE: TRP) (TC Energy or the company) today announced a new sustainable energy initiative for the Keystone XL Project. The company will achieve net zero emissions across the project operations when it is placed into service in 2023 and has committed the operations will be fully powered by renewable energy sources no later than 2030. This announcement comes after an extensive period of study and analysis, and as part of the company’s ongoing commitment to sustainability, thoughtfully finding innovative ways to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, while providing communities with reliable energy needed today.
“Since it was initially proposed more than 10 years ago, the Keystone XL project has evolved with the needs of North America, our communities and the environment,” said Richard Prior, President of Keystone XL. “We are confident that Keystone XL is not only the safest and most reliable method to transport oil to markets, but the initiatives announced today also ensures it will have the lowest environmental impact of an oil pipeline in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. Canada and the United States are among the most environmentally responsible countries in the world with some of the strictest standards for fossil fuel production.”
I assume Richard Prior is a childless nihilist who has decided to run out the clock on humanity, because confronting climate change is just too inconvenient or something. Speaking as a childless nihilist, myself, I still can’t wrap my head around the idea of not caring that I’m leaving a (literally) smoking wreckage behind me. What’s the point? It can’t be love of money, because there are plenty of ways for a (doubtless) wealthy person like Prior to make huge scads of additional money – does he just hate humanity? What the hell is going on?
Let’s look more closely:
announced a new sustainable energy initiative for the Keystone XL Project
Keystone XL is a pipeline intended to carry bituminous tar sands, some of the most polluting fossil fuels known to man, which are also additionally polluting because of the difficulty of extracting them. The whole process hangs on the edge of profitability, but it’s being pushed by Canadian mining interests and it represents a lot of money for a lot of people. Because, apparently, they are not willing to forgo the opportunity to burn a bunch more fossil fuels.
But this is sheer disinformation:
The company will achieve net zero emissions across the project operations
Personally, I am skeptical of even that, because there are no electrical bulldozers and earth-moving equipment. That stuff mostly runs on diesel. My bet is that the Keystone XL people are either 1) lying, 2) delusional, 3) planning to “offset” the emissions by performing good works, planting trees, or some other ritual propitiation of the laws of physics. I’m going to assume they’re just lying.
The main part that goes unsaid is that the product is still polluting as hell but Keystone XL is disclaiming any involvement in that. It’s as though though Saudi Aramco started billing their billions of barrels of oil as “green oil” because it’s being extracted without using much oil. Um. Of course it is, because lowering the energy cost of extracting the oil increases the profit margin. It doesn’t do a damn thing to significantly reduce the amount of CO2 going into the atmosphere.
the initiatives announced today also ensures it will have the lowest environmental impact of an oil pipeline in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.
I have used some sloppy powerpoint to produce an illustration of what we’re talking about:
Also, remember that the pipeline is mostly built already – it’s already too late for most of the emissions. And, the main point is that the Keystone XL project’s product is the most polluting part.
Canada and the United States are among the most environmentally responsible countries in the world with some of the strictest standards for fossil fuel production
Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me?
Yes, basically. But this is what we’re going to be dealing with: instead of responding effectively to the climate crisis, the corporations and governments are going to fall back on their usual panoply of tricks: lying outright, cooking statistics, classifying the nasty parts, and suppressing protest. Remember: the US is the “environmentally responsible” county that withdrew from the (inadequate) Paris accord, and cheated on it anyway by not counting its massive and polluting military as part of the US’ emissions. We look bad as it is, but if you add the military, it’s vastly worse.
I used to know a junkie, who’d often say that they were going to quit just as soon as they finished what they were carrying. That’s, basically, the superpowers’ attitude toward fossil fuels, “we’ll quit, but we’re gonna burn what we have, of course.” Meanwhile, they’re always looking for more.
Back in 2018 I wrote: [stderr]
Get your act together because we will either all hang separately or together. Your power-games now end in death for us all. This shit is serious and I am very unhappy that the world’s response is in your grubby little incompetent hands.
I was also predicting that the world’s powers were going to track the worst predictions of the IPCC report, which is how it’s happening: [guard]
The melting of ice across the planet is accelerating at a record rate, with the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets speeding up the fastest, research has found.
The rate of loss is now in line with the worst-case scenarios of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s leading authority on the climate, according to a paper published on Monday in the journal The Cryosphere.
Remember: the melting ice is the canary in the coal mine. The fact that the canary has been lying on its back, immobile for a while, means that the entire process is continuing. It’s not just a matter of sea level rise: the oceans are dying, crops are dying, people will migrate, eventually there will be mass anoxic events – which is a sciency way of saying there will be clouds of unbreathable atmosphere knocking around that kill everything underneath them. That last part will be a while off, so that Richard Prior will be comfortably in his grave and won’t have to worry about it.
In the quote above, I emphasized the word “accelerating” – it’s getting worse faster. And our leaders continue to put forth plans that are mostly kicking the can down the road for the next generation. The last time I checked, the US’ plan for emissions is that they will continue to increase until 2050 or so, at which point something magical will happen. You know, like how the summer sun is going to make the Covid-19 go away?
The living will curse the memory of the dead.
I assumed from the PR you quoted that they were intending the pipeline would be fully built by then so they were just talking about the pumping, but I am cynical too.
It did give Paul and me one of those “What the fuck?” moments followed by that grim laughter you do when the only alternative is quiet weeping. Laughter is hard to come by at the moment, I’ll take what I can get. It’s this kind of stuff, among other reasons, that makes me glad that in the end I couldn’t have children.
“The company will achieve net zero emissions across the project operations”
The bullet factory will achieve zero accidents in the manufacture of the.. y’know… BULLETS. Bombs. Missiles. Whatever.
I focus on 1 on 1 criticism and how to properly direct social shaming because of the magnaitude of the problem. One of my biggest obstacles is people who seem categorically opposed to negative feeling political behavior. The shaming of shaming and offense at offense. We are social primates, politics is always a mix of positive and negative feeling political behavior and it’s about a mix of both approaches and there can be people that choose one or the other.
The segment of the population that can’t take criticism and is actively interfering with the political process seems like a good place to work. The spreading of fear of minority groups like was done with BLM, and “cancel culture” used by people on the left and the right. I think this can be fixed, we won’t stop critisizing each other and we can only learn more about it.
Science: This canary is dead. It is an ex canary.
Fossil industry: Nah, it’s just sleeping.
As a scientist, I find it, in a very perculiar disgusting way, amazing how some people bend them selves to knots of lies, that effectively will kill other people, for … just money.
Reading the quote I also assumed the “zero emissions” refer to the operations and skip over awkward parts like constructions or what the pipeline actually does. In other words, they’ll run the handful of LEDs – one for every thousand miles of pipe to indicate “no (very big) leak right now (probably)” – with a solar panel, any pumps using treadmill prison labour from a for-profit jail and subsidiary, and, ta-daa, zero emissions. All of this would absolutely take a decade to achieve, if not longer. Especially if a government subsidises “green investments” and upgrades.
It’s how corporations think. It’s also what you get when you put the PR department in charge of managing the environmental impact. “What about [x]?” – “Hm, yeah, okay. Uh… how about … we could just not mention [x]?” – “Brilliant, another problem solved!”
But I’m no cynic, nooo.
Massive geoengineering projects.
I feel like this is sorta like advertising that your CIA blacksite torture dungeon is made using officially certified vegan and cruelty-free materials and equipment. Kinda misses the point far enough to stab you in the kidney. maybe both.
I was talking about this with a coworker today, and this pipeline is for such a crappy deposit of petroleum, that it literally wasn’t worth taking out of the ground 20-30 years ago or so. It’s only viable now because we’ve burnt all the good stuff.
It’s frustrating how ideologically committed to fossil fuels so many people are. If we could just strip the fossil fuel industry of government subsidies and protectionism, renewables would boom. Never mind if we could effectively transfer those subsidies and protectionism to renewables research and implementation hurdles.
I feel like we are at a point where we could be building the foundations of a utopia, but people are so damned worried some poor person might get something they don’t “deserve” or some billionaire might see a hiccup in their stock portfolio’s growth.
lochaber@#7:
I feel like this is sorta like advertising that your CIA blacksite torture dungeon is made using officially certified vegan and cruelty-free materials and equipment.
“All of our ‘customer satisfaction experts’ are vegan and are covered under our generous employee medical plan.”
I just have no words anymore.
Are we just collectively trying to turn Mad Max into a documentary or something?
I believe most of these people simply can’t or don’t fully grasp the scale of the catastrophe we’re looking at.
They think it’ll get a bit warmer, but they have air conditioned homes and yachts.
They think the seas might rise, but they can simply move to higher elevations, or live on their yachts.
They think maybe water will become scarce, but they have all the money, they won’t want for anything.
What they don’t realise is that 200 mph winds, the total collapse of agriculture and air that becomes a toxic miasma are not things you can run or hide from. Once the ecosphere collapses, humanity literally cannot survive.
We’re probably doomed. It’s probably a good thing.
Ian King@#10:
I believe most of these people simply can’t or don’t fully grasp the scale of the catastrophe we’re looking at.
That seems to be it. Yet, when someone posts an article like, “no, really, this is how bad it’s going to get!” they get swarmed with people saying “hey don’t cause despair because nobody’ll do anything if they feel despair.”
My point is that nobody’ll do anything anyhow. “Let the kids handle it” is not a good strategy.
klatu@#9:
Are we just collectively trying to turn Mad Max into a documentary or something?
Mad Max had people in it.
The early stages will look like Mad Max, but then things will quiet down considerably.
Alright, who used the HAARP to make it snow in arizona?
@Marcus 11
They assume and perhaps project despair. Fear and terror are motivators and they seem to need that one. The fear and terror are rational. The despair I’ll have to think about.
Maybe they despair having to confront the politically aggressive and obstinate and choose the easier option of using their own aggression against the ones the politically obstinate are focused on. I’ve managed to repel the worst at a political discussion board, I should think about what kinds of bad political behavior to start discussions about.
Fun with maths:
from MR @ 12 “but then things will quiet down considerably.
Assuming societal collapse, and a cadaver supports a person’s food needs for 2 weeks, how long until 6.74 billion -> 1 …
astringer@#14:
A corpse will not support anyone for 2 weeks when refrigeration is not available and its 120F
Drymeat.
chigau@#16:
Drymeat
“Air dry the rich!”
It’s frustrating how ideologically committed to fossil fuels so many people are. If we could just strip the fossil fuel industry of government subsidies and protectionism, renewables would boom.
What’s really frustrating is listening to pseudoscience drivel like this from the left. Green proponents are the biggest obstacle to fixing climate change, bigger than the deniers, because renewables can’t replace fossil fuels, and Green aligned politicians would rather build a new coal power plant than keep running an existing nuclear power plant, as we’ve seen in California and Germany. The truly sad part is that the leftie Greens pretend to be pro science, but close their eyes and ears as soon as the climate scientists tell us that we need lots of nuclear, and instead listen to liars who peddle pro renewable pseudoscience like Greenpeace, Friends Of The Earth, etc.
@GerrardOfTitanServer
Germany’s CDU is (right of) center-right. Very much the neolib status-quo party. To claim they are green or left is utter nonsense. To claim that the green parties of the world are anything but marginal is utter nonsense. To claim that these minority political parties are single-handedly stalling progress on climate change is… beyond stupid.
You’re just pissed at them for opposing nuclear power. Fine, maybe that opposition has always been mostly irrational. Great. Good for you.
But do you actually believe the world woul look better now if that opposition had never taken place? That we would have entered some fission-powered utopia? No. Fossil fuels would still be used at the same (maximum) scale because that’s what capitalism is all about.
Also this month, another article from the Guardian: Top scientists warn of ‘ghastly future of mass extinction’ and climate disruption
The Guardian’s source: Corey J. A. Bradshaw e.a./Frontiers: Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future
Jörg @#20:
Also this month, another article from the Guardian: Top scientists warn of ‘ghastly future of mass extinction’ and climate disruption
It seems that it’s starting to sink in.
One thing that I see a lack of is estimates regarding how long/if the imbalance will turn around. Of course “there won’t be any humans to enjoy it” is the problem. But, I saw, somewhere, that it could take 40,000-100,000 years for the carbon to be re-sequestered.
The German government with their ridiculous “energy transition” have been following the Green playbook which was written like 60 years ago by people like Amory Lovins. To deny this, and the political alliance that they made with the actual Green party, is silly.
Yes. Your supposition that they would have burned just as much fossil fuels is simply wrong. Compare countries France and Germany. France went nuclear for reasons unrelated to climate change, and emits much less CO2 per capita than Germany, and also has a host of other benefits: cheaper electricity, cleaner air, greater energy security and national security, less environmental damage from lignite coal mining, less environmental damage from less wind turbines and solar cells and long distance transmission, less environmental damage by proxy in China esp regarding to the mining of rare earth metals for wind turbines.
Look also at California. Circa 1960, enough nuclear power plants were being built or already being built that if these plans were not disrupted by governor Jerry Brown – Democratic party member, Green sympathizer, and a person whose family had huge financial stakes in fossil fuels – then California today would have zero co2 emissions from electricity. That would be a damn site better.
Look at these two examples and see what happens when Green dogma comes to power: Shutting down nuclear power plants, and building new coal power plants. Germany in the last year just finished construction of a new coal power plant, while shutting down its nuclear power plants. When Jerry Brown was first governor, and killed all of those nuclear power plants, he also arranged for the construction of a new coal power plant.
In these two cases, we also see that the leaders are just shills. Jerry Brown did it because he had huge amounts of money to gain. The German prime minister / chanceller before Merkel, Gerhard Schröder, is now being paid by Russian natural gas money as a “thank you” for making Germany more dependent on Russian natural gas. I can’t even make this shit up. This isn’t a conspiracy. It’s all public info. The Green energy worldwide movement is a religious cult – and I’m not the only person to say that – see my citations at the end. It’s a religon in all of the typical ways – faith based beliefs in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, listening to religious “Green energy” experts instead of to the leading scientific bodies like the IPCC and leading climate scientists, followers are mostly well-meaning but ignorant and sometimes delusional, and many of the leaders are con-men who are exploiting the followers for the financial benefits of themselves. Don’t even get me started on the circumstantial evidence that much of the Green energy movement was and is bankrolled by the fossil fuel industry as a convenient way to attack their only real competitor, fossil fuels.
One – strawman of my position. I didn’t say Green parties. I said Green dogma, including Green parties, Green NGOs, and everyday people who have been fooled into believing the pernicious Green energy dogma.
Two – I’m going to side with the climate scientists instead of the liars, frauds, and shills who author stuff like Germany’s Green energy transition plans. Here’s a few:
Leading climate scientist Kerry Emanuel has said “The anti-nuclear bias of this latest IPCC release is rather blatant, and reflects the ideology of the environmental movement. History may record that this was more of an impediment to decarbonization than climate denial”. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/10/29/top-climate-scientists-warn-governments-of-blatant-anti-nuclear-bias-in-latest-ipcc-climate-report/
Quoting James Hansen, the preeminent climate scientist:
https://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/23/jim-hansen-presses-the-climate-case-for-nuclear-energy/
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110729_BabyLauren.pdf
A facile explanation would focus on the ‘merchants of doubt’ who have managed to confuse the public about the reality of human-made climate change. The merchants play a role, to be sure, a sordid one, but they are not the main obstacle to solution of human-made climate change.
The bigger problem is that people who accept the reality of climate change are not proposing actions that would work.
[…]
The insightful cynic will note: “Now I understand all the fossil fuel ads with windmills and solar panels – fossil fuel moguls know that renewables are no threat to the fossil fuel business.” The tragedy is that many environmentalists lineup on the side of the fossil fuel industry, advocating renewables as if they, plus energy efficiency, would solve the global climate change matter.
Can renewable energies provide all of society’s energy needs in the foreseeable future? It is conceivable in a few places, such as New Zealand and Norway. But suggesting that renewables will let us phase rapidly off fossil fuels in the United States, China, India, or the world as a whole is almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.
This Easter Bunny fable is the basis of ‘policy’ thinking of many liberal politicians. Yet when such people are elected to the executive branch and must make real world decisions, they end up approving expanded off-shore drilling and allowing continued mountaintop removal, long-wall coal mining, hydro-fracking, etc. – maybe even a tar sands pipeline. Why the inconsistency?
Because they realize that renewable energies are grossly inadequate for our energy needs now and in the foreseeable future and they have no real plan. They pay homage to the Easter Bunny fantasy, because it is the easy thing to do in politics. They are reluctant to explain what is actually needed to phase out our need for fossil fuels. Reluctance to be honest might seem strange, given that what is needed to solve the problem actually makes sense and is not harmful to most people. I will offer a possible explanation for their actions below.
—
James Hansen has also said that the Green movement is quasi-religious. Transcribed by me:
https://youtu.be/KnN328eD-sA?t=2041
Well, I can point out one or two points. What you find if you advocate – You know, frankly, I’ve spoken to many scientists, and by far the majority agrees that nuclear needs to be part of the solution. However, when you stand up and say that, there’s an anti-nuclear community, which I would characterize as quasi-religious, which just hammers you, and you have to spend a lot of your time trying to deal with that. I’ve even found that some of the – you know that I’m no longer a government employee I have to raise the funds to cover my group of four people, and there are a number of foundations [???] foundation that have been my most reliable source while I was a government employee because I like to speak out is not part of my government job but so I had to prove that I was not using government funds, so when I traveled I had to get non-goverment funds to pay for that. Well, the foundation that provided the funds now will not give me a dime because they are anti-nuclear, and so there’s a lot of pressure on scientists just to keep their mouths shut, but we’re at a point where we’d better not keep our mouths shut when we can see a story which has become very clear, and that is that it’s a .. mirage to think that all-renewables can provide all of the energy that we need, and at the speed we need. China and India are using tremendous amounts of power, almost all coal for their electric plants, and there’s no way that they can power their steel mills and all the other factories that they’re building products for us on solar panels.
—
Several other preeminent climate scientists have also come out in favor of nuclear power: Dr James Hansen, Dr. Ken Caldeira, Dr. Kerry Emanuel, and Dr. Tom Wigley. https://www.cnn.com/2013/11/03/world/nuclear-energy-climate-change-scientists-letter/index.html
Dozens more prominent scientists have also come out publicly in favor of nuclear power. http://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2018/10/25/open-letter-to-heads-of-state-of-the-g-20-from-scientists-and-scholars-on-nuclear-for-climate-change
The German energy transition, and basically all Green energy transitions around the world, are based on pseudoscience and lies. That’s why they’re all failing – with very few exceptions which are predominantly hydro power.
GerrardOfTitanServer
Firstly, you do seem to be glossing a bit over the EROIs (as I’m sure you are aware, C S Hall highlighted the critical nature of these with respect to energy policy – arguably any other considerations are secondary). While a certain degree of uncertainty is always present in such calculations (and certainly one should be wary of holding these with too high a confidence level), it is telling that current and most recent estimations of EROI put those for renewables as 28.4 (Hydropower), 13.2 (Wind onshore), 8.7 (Wind offshore), 7.8 (PV), 2.6 (CSP), while by contrast Lambert’s metastudy for Nuclear put it at about 14 (comparable to wind, and less than hydro).
Personally I have no problem with the idea nuclear may well be part of the energy generation basket (my position is that we need non-GHG emitting generation, and I am fairly indifferent as to what technologies are employed), but to argue that nuclear is the only plausible technology and that renewable energies are incapable of meeting energy needs to any substantive degree would seem to be at odds with the physico-chemical assessments (in short, I do not assert the opposite, but am unconvinced by your argument here).
More generally, the argument that the nuclear slowdown is solely a result of green dogma seems somewhat implausible – after all, China (a country not generally noted for its ideological commitment to green energy – though you are welcome to make the case if you believe it is) failed to reach its 2020 target of 58 GW of installed power, and currently has only about 15 GW of nuclear power under construction. This is, perhaps, worth some consideration.
New plants are safer and more sophisticated than those that failed in the past, but are also much more expensive to build, and costly to operate. The capital costs of recent projects in the US, France and Finland (none yet complete) have been around $10/kw, compared to $1/kw or less for solar. And, while PV is essentially costless to operate, the operating costs of nuclear power plants are around 2c/kwH (even when solar PV is backed up with battery storage, it is cheaper to build and operate than new nuclear).
Are nuclear advocates correct that the health and climate risks of nuclear power generation are far less than those arising from burning coal? I would say yes. Are they correct that it would have been better to continue building nuclear power plants in the 1990s and early 2000s than to undertake the massive expansion of coal-fired power that actually took place? Again, I would say yes. But today that is all somewhat irrelevant – the key issue (after EROI considerations) is currently an economic and timescale one.
As far as I can tell, the time and cost constraints of large scale nuclear power plants make them by themselves ill-suited to meet the emissions reduction targets necessary to limit to the merely disastrous 1.5 C target (as opposed to the more civilisation-ending and possibly human-extinction higher temperatures), while SMRs are currently a somewhat unproven technology. Indeed, NuScale’s pilot plant, with a total capacity of 720 MW, is currently scheduled to start operation in 2029 (with large-scale deployment will take at least a decade more). By contrast, stabilising the climate requires coal-fired power to be eliminated by 2030, and electricity generation to be decarbonized more or less completely by 2035. This would seem to be a bit of an issue, then.
Now this doesn’t mean nuclear will not (or even should not) play a role – after all, simply because it is slow, expensive, and generates radioactive material does not mean it should be ruled out (at the very least, it is certainly preferable to fossil fuels). Indeed, it is worth noting that even Project Drawdown (a group which you would no doubt would count as “Green Dogma Religious Fanatics”) still count Nuclear one part of their proposed solutions within their framework (at a minimum, as it is highly useful for baseload power), they just don’t propose nuclear to the exclusion of anything else.
I would certainly agree that none of this means that we should be in a hurry to close down existing nuclear power plants – whenever there is a choice between closing down a coal or gas plant and closing down a nuclear plant, the best choice is to reduce carbon-based generation. In that respect I would indeed criticise the German government (though it is worth noting that this policy appears to have been largely a response to the Fukushima disaster – overreaction though it may well have been).
Personally, as someone in storage rather than generation, I have no “skin in the game” (beyond that of any given person – i.e. not wishing to spend my remaining days in a world every-increasingly hostile to my continued existence). But frankly speaking, I find the argument of “here’s one solution to the energy crisis – just do X” to be equally unconvincing whether X be nuclear, wind, solar, or (as I have sometimes seen argued) reducing human population. My personal understanding is that a wide range of approaches on many different fronts (social, technological, etc.) will be needed, covering everything from generation, transmission, storage, and usage.
To argue otherwise would seem to be an egregious oversimplification.
Note: of course, this brief discussion misses many other important concepts (e.g., geothermal and tidal energy; the importance of carbon capture and the low likelihood of it in the short term; the importance of land management and why when considering LULUCF we should look to halt deforestation; why the EU + UK 23% decrease of GHGs wrt. 1990 levels is relatively positive, but clearly greater action regarding climate change is critical, and complacency is completely unjustified as even best case scenarios will have severe negative consequences; sustainable design of cities and urban landscape planning; the potential for improving reforestation by meaningful action; the synergy between reduced GHGs and reliance on outmoded models such as those which have an inherent lack of sustainability; etc. etc.), but though these are important they are not relevant here so I will neglect them to save space.
PS Apologies if the formatting is terrible – this is my first time posting using wordpress and I am finding it somewhat unintuitive.
Sorry for length, but I don’t know what parts you already know, and what parts you are ignorant of.
Didn’t mention because it didn’t seem relevant, and because I wanted to start to an appeal to authority and an appeal to shared values of science. Now I have to get into the weeds, and start getting into facts.
Your study is simply inaccurate. Without even looking at it, I know the likely explanation. I’ve looked at many such studies in my time. It’s likely that the metastudy includes many studies that do very silly things, like assume gaseous diffusion enrichment instead of centrifuge enrichment. There are many such papers pushed by Green-biased persons who blatantly lie (such as by assuming gaseous diffusion enrichment) in their papers in order to achieve their results. Do you want to share a link or better citation so that I can start digging into this?
Germany is shutting down nuclear power. Germany has spent so much money and time on their failed renewable energy transition, that if they spent it on nuclear instead, even at Hinkley C or Vogtle prices, they’d have enough time to almost be done by now (comparing it to the build time of France historically), and they’d have enough nuclear electricity for all of their demand, and probably enough to provide electricity for all of their cars too. Why didn’t they do nuclear? Why did they shut down their nuclear? Why do they persist with renewables only?
We can also look at historical trends. Nearly overnight, upfront capital costs tripled, and they did so as a response to Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, and also “The China Syndrome” movie which came in theatres mere days after the Three Mile Island accident, spreading Green lies to the population. Here’s the upfront capital cost data:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516300106
This to be is enough proof that it was the overreaction to these accidents, stoked and fueled and founded on Green lies, which is the underlying cause of a very large portion of nuclear costs today.
Yet more weeds. Here we go.
The numbers that you are citing don’t make any sense. Likely, you meant “$10/w upfront capital costs” and “$1/w or less” – not “kw”. Then, you go and compare levelized costs (“/kwH”) vs upfront capital costs (“/kw”). What are you doing? You claim to be involved in energy storage companies? Why are you making such elementary mistakes like this? Comparing levelized costs to upfront capital costs is something I expect from an ignorant amateur.
One approach at a rebuttal: As a brute historical fact, again, Germany has spent so much money on their renewables energy transition plan that if they built nuclear, even at an assumed 11 USD / w nameplate upfront capital costs, they would have enough nuclear electricity for their grid, and probably enough spare to power all of their cars if electric. And note that we should expect much cheaper nuclear builds in the future if we adopt proper policies. With proper conventional designs and using the same work crews again and again, one can achieve learning curve cost decreases, like what we’ve seen in South Korea for like 30-40 years, and one could expect something like 2.5 USD / w nameplate upfront capital costs.
The second approach. Explaining the underlying reasons. Why is it that solar is so expensive if it seems so cheap? It’s because we have to look at total systems costs. For a nuclear power plant, the cost of the nuclear power plant is most of the total grid system cost. For a solar plant, it’s a very small part of the total grid system cost. Why?
Our society requires reliable, on-demand, 24-7 electricity. Converting intermittent, unreliable, undispatchable, solar electricity and wind electricity into reliable electricity is hugely expensive.
You could use local storage and isolated (micro)grids. Green so-called academics rarely suggest this plan in papers, but yahoos on the internet regularly suggest this plan. This would require roughly 4 weeks of storage to maintain comparable levels of electricity uptime. This is impossible.
You could use a cross-continent transmission grid (the exact opposite of local control of electricity generation by the way), and this theoretically drops storage requirements to about 1 day. This is the plan usually suggested by Green so-called academics. A few problems with this approach. All of that extra transmission is already more expensive than the solar cells and the wind turbines (and the optimistic costs for the nuclear power plants). The batteries also effectively cost more than the solar cells and the wind turbines. This also isn’t enough to get a functioning grid – one also needs grid inertia and other frequency control services, and blackstart capability, and these don’t come for free. In the end, these sorts of plans have a total system cost that is much higher than nuclear costs, even at Hinkley C and Vogtle prices (e.g. upfront capital costs of 11 USD / w nameplate). There’s also geopolitical blockers to this plan – many countries would be entirely unwilling to rely on the goodwill of their neighbors to maintain their own electricity supply, and so this plan is dead in the water.
You can use fossil fuel backup, especially natural gas, as Germany and California are doing, but then we cannot meet our climate goals. Even 20% electricity from natural gas is way too much to meet our climate goals.
Solar cells and wind turbines could be free, and it still wouldn’t be cheap enough.
Why is solar and wind being built right now, and nuclear not? Because of a variety of government subsidies, both direct and indirect. Without these subsidies, it would not make financial sense to build grid-scale solar and wind.
In some places, new nuclear is outright illegal, like Germany. In other places, like California, there are laws in place that require grid operators to obtain X% of their electricity from renewable resources, which by definition exclude nuclear (renewable energy portfolio standards).
In many places, renewables receive direct money subsidies from the government (ex renewable energy credits). These are huge in amount relative to the amount of generation. Nuclear doesn’t get anything like this (and please don’t make me talk about the so-called subsidy of government insurance for nuclear).
Renewables typically require much more transmission than other generators. In a fair world, renewable operators would pay fairly for the extra transmission needed, but in the real world, that cost is passed on to end-consumers.
Renewables typically need backup plants to be ready to go at a moment’s notice. This creates much more need for capacity payments compared to other generators. In a fair world, renewable operators would pay for these capacity payments, but in the real world, that cost is passed on to end-consumers.
We need frequency control services, including grid inertia, to keep the grid up. This is a subtle point for any non-engineer. Solar and wind by their nature do not provide grid inertia. Without enough grid inertia, the system would collapse. It is my understanding that batteries cannot provide grid inertia because the response time of their control circuitry can still be measured in many milliseconds, which is too long. We really need conventional synchronously spinning masses. In a fair world, other generators would be properly rewarded for these additional services that they provide, especially the grid inertia, and thereby effectively reduce profits for solar and wind generators, but in the real world, solar and wind are again freeriders on these essential grid services.
We also need blackstart capability. AFAIK, solar and wind cannot be used to blackstart. Again, solar and wind operators are freeriding.
AFAIK, in some places, long-term purchase agreements are restricted or forbidden, and instead grid operators are required to purchase from spot market prices. This is another unfair subsidy to solar and wind. (To explain, imagine a town that relies on a nuclear power plant for electricity. Imagine adding solar and wind to that little microgrid. Sure, solar and wind would produce electricity at smaller spot market prices for a few hours a day, but it will raise total system costs, and it will raise the end costs for consumers. Why? Nuclear power plant costs are basically fixed. Reducing output doesn’t reduce costs. Marginal fuel costs are near zero. So, in this plan, solar and wind replaced some nuclear output, and nuclear couldn’t sell during those hours, but the nuclear power plant doesn’t save any money for not producing for those hours, and so the nuclear power plant must increase its prices for the rest of the day in order to break even.)
Conventional nuclear power plants in the US (but not so much for France) were not designed to load-follow very well. If they reduce their power output for too much for too long, they have to shut down for a few hours or a few days due to a xenon transient. When there’s an overabunance of solar and wind, there are actually negative spot prices, and so a nuclear power plant must either shut down or eat the negative price, and if they shut down, they cannot start again quickly because of xenon.
Many of the renewable energy credits are paid as flat amounts per joule of electricity produced. This leads to perverse outcomes where many solar and wind operators earn most of their money from renewable energy credits, and not from selling electricity. Worse, this creates the perverse incentive to build more solar and wind in some areas even though they’re regularly hitting negative prices at peak production. Worse, this leads to more xenon transients in these nuclear power plants, causing the cheap nuclear to have to shut down because of the transitory periods of cheap solar and wind, or else eat the negative spot market prices.
Note that in some places, nat gas operators earn most of their money from capacity payments, and not from selling electricity.
Let’s also talk about market manipulation. Whether it’s an actual conspiracy, or the natural outcome of the market incentives, solar, wind, and nat gas operators can “conspire” together to temporarily drop eletricity spot prices to negative with the “intention” to force nuclear out of the market (xenon transients). Again, when many of the nuclear power plants in the US (but not other places like France) shut down, often they must remain shutdown for hours or days because of xenon. Thus, by temporarily eating a loss, solar, wind, and nat gas operators can force one of their biggest competitors out of the market, in order to kater reap the higher profits without the nuclear competition.
PS: While I’m here, let me attack levelized costs (LCOE), because you cited one. Levelized costs are almost uniformly dishonest. They’re dishonest for two reasons.
First. The levelized costs only look at total energy output, and not whether it’s reliable or intermittent electricity, and that alone makes it fundamentally dishonest. Look above for all of the extra real costs that someone has to pay which is not captured by basically all levelized costs. Sometimes they’ll throw on a token amount of storage (frequently 4 hours), but it’s just a token amount when we need to be more like 12+ hours. Again, solar and wind could be free, and it still wouldn’t be cheap enough.
Second. They play financial accounting games. They use discount rates, which is a great tool for private investors, but a horrible tool for planning public works and government money. By using discont rates, one can take solutions which have higher upfront capital costs, and higher total costs divided by equipment lifetimes, and make these solutions look cheaper. It’s perverse for planning government expenditure. For some feeling for this, even at a modest 3% discount rate, approx 2/3 of the value of an 80 year nuclear power plant is ignored, aka the cost is made to look 3x higher. At a 10% discount rate, as used in some real and important publications, for a 80 year nuclear power plant, roughly 90% of the value is discounted, meaning that it’s made to look about 10x more expensive.
Why? France converted most of their grid to nuclear in about 15 years. Admittingly, they had a proven design and experienced work crews, and so we should expect a little more for other countries starting from scratch, but these sort of timescale matches our climate goal needs. By contrast, Germany’s renewable energy transition plan is a failure. France vs Germany shows that a working renewable plan takes more time and more money to work (assuming it could ever work).
Strawman. Where have I made that claim here?
It was in response to Green lies about the Fukushima accident. I hesitate to call it a disaster. No one died and no one will die from radiation. Most of the so-called exclusion zone is safe to live in now, and much of the food grown there now is also safe to eat. Compare that to the many thousands killed by the tsunami, and IIRC 1.5 thousand who died as an indirect result of the evacuation who would not have otherwise died. With the benefit of hindsight, we can now say that for most people, it would have been better to return home shortly after the accident, but instead our nuclear security and safety discussions are being driven by anti-nuclear fossil-fuel-funded propaganda – I speak of LNT.
One. A strawman. I never said that nuclear is the only tech that will solve all of our problems. That’s silly. At a minimum, we also need either electric cars or CO2-neutral synthetic gasoline, and also CO2-neutral synthetic jetfuel for planes. We also need other synthetics for various industrial processes, e.g. metal refining, plastics, etc.
Two. You’re espousing a Green dogma. Real engineers shouldn’t believe this nonsense that “a dozen different technological solutions are equally important and needed”. In real engineering practice, there is often just one or two best technology for the given application (excluding the 1% exceptions). That’s why almost all cars on the road 20 years ago were internal combustion engines. That’s why almost all cars on the road today are internal combustion engines or electric battery cars. There will never be a time that 12 different technologies will have significant marketshare in car engines because of technological reasons. Similarly, for electricity generation, there never will be a time when technology considerations means we should have significant fractions of our grid electricity coming from 12 different sources.
The ideal solution for electricity most places is probably as much hydro as you can reasonably build, and fill the rest in with nuclear. For some small islands and far off-grid scenarios, e.g. 1% of the solution or less, sure, some other technologies could be better. Don’t care right now. I care right now about convincing the public that nuclear is better in almost every way, and that renewables cannot cut it, especially solar and wind, without heaps of nuclear power.
However, that’s just electricity. Again, we also need a lot more for a lot of other problems, many of which will depend on clean, cheap electricity.
Oh, PS:
Some recent studies suggest that some hydropower generators can be huge emitters of greenhouse gasses. AFAIK, no one is quite sure how bad it is. It seems like (artificial) reservoirs, especially shallow ones in tropical areas, cause a different biological decomposition pathway to be employed for dead plant matter that falls into the river into the reservoir, and this emits much more co2-equivalent (methane) than the other biological decomposition pathway. In particular, according to some measurements, some hydro dams are worse greenhouse gas emitters than a coal power plant of the same size.
I don’t know how bad this problem is, but IIRC, the IPCC and others make an offhand mention to it without really properly capturing it in their models. AFAIK, hydro may still be great at non-tropical latitudes, but this is an unquantified problem which AFAIK really needs much more work, and may limit the applicability of hydro, and may force us into even more nuclear.
PPS:
First, I note very carefully that you sound “energy crisis”, and not “climate change”. In that context:
Please look at France (as already mentioned), and also Sweden. These two are the only industrialized countries to have fixed the problem for electricity generation, and both did it almost exclusively with nuclear and hydro. How can you say what you say when there are such clear counterexamples? I say again, you are espousing a green dogma with no basis in sound engineering principles. This particular brand of “wholistic” nonsense, “everything has a place”, “every approach is useful and needed”, has no place in proper engineering discipline.
GerrardOfTitanServer
Thank you for the response. I had assumed you were an honest interlocutor, and hoped you would respond with a similar position in mind – that you seem more interested in insulting me and talking about “green conspiracy” rather than addressing the topic in question is something which I am not too interested in getting dragged into, I’m afraid. Particularly as I have better things to do with my time, and frankly had enough of that degree of hostility from climate change deniers (no, before you scream strawman yet again I am not equating your positions – merely you aggressive behaviour).
Consequently, I will respond quickly – you have my apologies if I don’t hit all your points, but I doubt you are interested in hearing anything I have to say anyway (you certainly didn’t seem to pay too much attention to my previous post). I would also note that given your behaviour, I am unlikely to respond to you past this point – I’m afraid I tend to reserve my time for people who are less dogmatic and more interested in data-driven discussion than purely proselytising.
“Your study is simply inaccurate.”
I took the data from the seminal work by C S Hall et. al (10.1016/j.enpol.2013.05.049). I think that arguing the person who invented the concept of EROI (and who has long been a critic of renewable energy on that basis) is responsible for “green propaganda” is somewhat of a stretch, but you are free to make that case if you wish.
Or, perhaps more usefully, you could instead provide sources for EROIs (and EROIext, Eroisoc, etc.) for nuclear which you believe are reasonable, and which fully account for all variables which need to be considered. To be clear, this isn’t snark – I am interested in seeing reliable sources of data, and would have actually appreciated seeing what you provided.
”Germany is shutting down nuclear power.”
Why are you shifting the goal posts and not addressing the point I made? I noted that China has not met its nuclear targets – and while I am apparently ignorant by your assessment, as far as I know Germany is not China. Since your hypothesis is that nuclear energy is globally being deliberately sabotaged by a cabal of green dogma cultists, please demonstrate that that is the case in China. Or, alternatively, concede the point you can’t demonstrate it (which doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened, merely that you can’t demonstrate it) and move on.
”Yet more weeds. Here we go.”
Indeed – more weeds.
Some brief points – I am not comparing capital costs to levelised costs. If you read it carefully, you will see I am comparing capital costs to capital costs (nuclear to PV), and levalised costs to levalised costs (nuclear to PV). The fact that you didn’t notice that is something I would expect from an ignorant amateur (or, more generously, someone who didn’t read carefully). As it happens, I am “involved” in energy storage. But thank you for suggesting I am lying about that – I certainly appreciate having aspersions cast upon by integrity and competence. (I wonder how you’d feel if instead of noting points of disagreement or confusion I just accused you of being ignorant and a liar? Well, given how sensitive you’ve been so far, I doubt you respond in a particularly adult fashion).
You again bring up historical Germany. As I said before, I would agree that in the 1990s and 2000s Germany would have been better off building nuclear rather than fossil fuels. Unfortunately, we are no longer in the 2000s, and as I don’t have access to a time machine my influence over past events is somewhat limited. Instead, I would hope most people would agree (you may or may not) it would seem to be more important to consider the future. To that end, please explain how you plan to erect and supply the number of nuclear power stations required to meet complete power decarbonisation by 2030 (i.e. in less than 9 years), particularly without increasing carbon emissions. I realise the internet is bad at communicating tone, so please allow me to state that again this is not intended as snark – I am legitimately interested in whatever solutions people have in mind, particularly if accompanied by a plan of action (an actual “substantiated by data” plan – not merely extrapolating from one country, but accounting for an actual cohesive global approach).
As it happens, I agree storage certainly is an issue for renewables – though for different reasons than you. I don’t believe cost is actually going to be the main limiting factor (Dahn’s seminal work on long-lifetime Li-ion will drive the price down considerably). My reason is because I believe that Li scarcity will be an issue, and that other technologies (such as NaS, pumped ion, etc.), while very promising, are going to be difficult to implement at the scale needed in the timeframe needed. This is why I favour a diverse basket of generation (and a diverse basket of storage). Indeed, while there are countries and cities with very high levels of renewables (in some cases higher than nuclear), my understanding is that these are generally benefiting from reliable sources (e.g. geothermal or hydroelectric), have balancing agreements with neighbouring countries, or some similar non-universal solution. I don’t think we should dismantle such systems where they work (you may or may not agree – maybe your hatred of renewables is so strong you would smash all currently established solar and wind farms regardless), but I do think that extrapolating from one country to the entire globe is not a great approach (you may or may not agree).
As a side note, I would also agree not to place too much stock in LCOEs (they are more a rough guide than anything substantive), as I would also agree that they play financial accounting games. But as one of the left (whom you apparently despise with a degree of vitriol I doubt I’ve ever earned, but you seem determine to lob at me regardless), that is more because I tend to find most economics consists of financial accounting games when you get down to it. For myself, as I noted, I am more interested in the EROI arguments, as physics is a bit less prone to manipulation (and is far less interested in negotiation).
”France converted most of their grid to nuclear in about 15 years.”
That is far too long a timescale. The target is to have the entire globe decarbonised within 9 years – which is why I said “by themselves” and “ill-suited”. I notice you haven’t touched the discussion of large scale and SMRs – that could have been a good topic, but you seem pretty uninterested in, you know, actual discussion. Had this conversation gone differently, and had you been more interested in discussing the importance of nuclear than trying to pretend I am “part of the green dogma cult”, I might also have asked you what your thoughts on thorium reactors are. But given how you’ve presented your arguments so far, I think I’ll ask some of my colleagues in the industry instead – they actually provide data instead of rhetoric, and don’t even feel the need to accuse me of being a brainwashed sheeple (or whatever your preferred insult is).
” Strawman. Where have I made that claim here?”
Strawman. Where did I claim you did make that claim? Simply put, I didn’t – but it is interesting that for someone so eager to avoid being strawmanned you are curiously eager to strawman others. Maybe you should tone down the self-aggrieved touchiness a tad?
One. A strawman. I never said that nuclear is the only tech that will solve all of our problems.
Again, strawman – I didn’t say you did say that. I noted I am sceptical of any argument along those lines from anyone. But again, it is impressive how quickly you wish to try and pretend I am strawmanning you – were I prone to similar behaviour, I might say it almost seems as though you are trying to poison the well. Fortunately, unlike you, I try to assume the person I am talking to is a reasonably honest interlocutor – but since you don’t seem inclined to reciprocate it would seem pointless for me to continue talking to you, no?
Real engineers shouldn’t believe this nonsense that “a dozen different technological solutions are equally important and needed”.
Now who is strawmanning who? Please say quote the exact text where I said “a dozen different technological solutions are equally important and needed”. No? Well, that’s a bit hypocritical and dishonest of you, now isn’t it?
Maybe try addressing what I did say, rather than what you think I said based on your stereotype of who you think I am? Or don’t – again, I’m not too interested in continuing such an unproductive discussion, so if you wish to argue against positions I don’t hold feel free to continue to do so (I hardly need to be involved for that).
Similarly, for electricity generation, there never will be a time when technology considerations means we should have significant fractions of our grid electricity coming from 12 different sources.
Even if we consider all the forms of renewables currently used to any significant degree, I count solar, wind, geothermal, and hydroelectric. That’s four, and last time I checked, 4 is a smidge less than 12. So, even assuming that any one country would build all of these in addition to nuclear (a somewhat bloody stupid assumption IMO given you’d only pick those which most make sense, but I am desperately trying to give you the benefit of the doubt here), I don’t see how you get to 12.
And, to be clear, I certainly wouldn’t get to 12 sources either. But then I would say that, wouldn’t I – because “argle blargle green cultists” or whatever.
”First, I note very carefully that you sound “energy crisis”, and not “climate change”.”
I did, because I was pointing to the overall general issue of energy generation, storage, transmission, and demand (which has proven to be a major issue for nations around the world even absent climate change). We have short, medium, and long term problems regarding energy – and while the immediate “let’s try not to all die” is the priority, it would be nice to try to also plan a little bit into the future (you know, for once in the history of humanity).
” Please look at France (as already mentioned), and also Sweden. These two are the only industrialized countries to have fixed the problem for electricity generation, and both did it almost exclusively with nuclear and hydro. How can you say what you say when there are such clear counterexamples?”
So hydro is no longer a renewable? Or is it that it is, but it is the “good sort” of renewable? No matter, ignore that – it isn’t important. What is actually important is your “almost” is doing some work there – please list the percentages. I also notice you ignored other examples, such as Iceland (how much of their energy is nuclear? Again, please give percentages). Or do you think countries like Iceland have not fixed the problem of energy generation – if so, why?
Regardless, the point I was making (which you have either misunderstood or are trying to ignore) is that what is the best energy generation solution in France may not be the best energy generation solution in Iceland (or any other given country). My approach would be to look at what is available in a country, what makes sense logistically, and to make a sensible plan to exploit what can be done in the shortest possible time frame (yes, even if that is 100% nuclear – or whatever the percentage may be).
That you wish to pretend the best approach is otherwise, and simply shout “nuclear!!!! (and maybe some hydro)” without actually looking at the country in question speaks volumes to your interest in trying to force a one-size-fits-all approach regardless of the situation. What sort of engineer does that? Perhaps one more interested in cutting corners than providing a good solution.
“I say again, you are espousing a green dogma with no basis in sound engineering principles.”
You can say it, but saying it doesn’t make it true. Regardless, frankly speaking, I don’t particularly care what you think of me – what I am interested in (and which you have consistently failed to provide) is an actual case for establishing nuclear globally. I don’t mean the sort of vague ideas you’ve given here – I mean an actual detailed plan with sound and valid arguments based on data.
For example, you need to provide percentages of power generation sources for countries – do you think the percentage of nuclear should be the same everywhere? If so, what value? If not, what values where? What would you support nuclear with? Would that be the same everywhere? If not, what would you use where? Etc. etc. etc. Moreover, you need to demonstrate that the EROIs make sense, that the fuel required is available (and available in quantities and in areas where it may be distributed, etc. to keep the EROIext and EROIsoc to acceptable levels), that the infrastructure may be built at a sufficient rate to meet the GHG reduction targets (and many other things too – this is just off the top of my head).
I’m not expecting this to be presented in a blog comment (I’m not unreasonable), but I would expect you (as a proponent of establishing high levels of nuclear power globally) to have this ready to hand. Ideally, in a form peer reviewed by experts in the relevant fields – but again, I’m not unreasonable, even just white papers breaking down of all these key issues would be a good start.
And before you start screaming “green dogma” at me again yet again (I really cannot overemphasise how tiresome that is to someone trying to establish discourse in good faith), let me note I would also say the exact same thing regarding any renewable proposals (in fact, I repeatedly have already).
Because, again, I do not care at all where the non-GHG power comes from – only that it does come. And, frankly speaking, pointing out the flaws in renewables (and I agree flaws do exist) does not make nuclear more attractive – every potential power source needs the case to be made for it individually. Which is all I really wanted from you, and what you have failed to deliver. Indeed, so far your case for nuclear (apart from pointing out flaws in renewables) has been to handwave all the challenges on the apparent assumption that since it is possible for France to have established high levels of nuclear power in 15 years, switching the entire world over to nuclear (oh, with some hydro – I wouldn’t want to be accused of strawmanning you again) will present little in the way of logistical problems (either in terms of construction, available expertise, ability to source fuel, ability to transport fuel with zero emissions, etc. etc. etc.). This is not, frankly speaking, a particularly convincing argument – nor is it even really a plan (it is, if I am being generous, a target).
Again (since you seem to view every criticism of your argument for global nuclear power as “green dogma lobby cultist argle blargle”) my point is not to attack nuclear power (I actually have friends in the industry, and I suspect many would view the sort of screeds you’ve presented as doing far more harm than good – I may even ask them if they look like they need a laugh). Instead, my point is you need to make an actual case for nuclear – crunch the numbers, run the calculations, show that it makes sense (in terms of EROI, logistics, timescales, supply logistics, mining and transportation, etc. for the entire world).
I am, despite your continued (and frankly speaking pretty exhausting) attempts to pretend otherwise, quite open to nuclear power. I just would like people to make the case for nuclear power, and not against renewables. I don’t think that that is particularly unreasonable.
And, as one final comment (again, I doubt I’ll bother with you any more given how poorly this conversation has gone) while you are welcome to spend your time however you wish, perhaps you might consider if you would do better to target your audience more wisely? I would also say, you’d probably be better off making sound and sensible arguments as to the benefits of nuclear (as previously noted) than continuing to try and wrench the conversation back to “evil green dogma” all the time. I am biased, of course – I prefer data to emotive appeals – but it is just a thought.
Or don’t – I certainly wouldn’t dream of presuming to tell you what to do.
Oh, and since I found this particularly asinine:
“This particular brand of “wholistic” nonsense, “everything has a place”, “every approach is useful and needed”, has no place in proper engineering discipline.”
What has a place in proper engineering discipline is examining the problem, finding the best solution(s), and deploying it. Given your approach seems to be to apply whatever solution you favour (regardless of the actual case on the ground) without providing any sort of analysis first speaks volumes.
And before you cry strawman yet again, yes – that is exactly what you are advocating here, otherwise you’d do the hard work of providing the analyses of the various cases you’ll face first. And no, I don’t think that assuming the needs of a remote mining facility in Australia are the same as a major city in Sweden is a particularly sensible strategy.
Personally, if that sort of slapdash “one solution for all cases regardless of whether or not it is the best” approach is indicative of how you carry out your work, I would be concerned about any project you’d be involved in.
Prescript: Marcus, sorry for posting several times. I assume the first was eaten by an auto-filter because of so many links. I’m putting code tags and butchering the URLs to hopefully avoid it.
I will do no such thing because I am not qualified to do so and because I lack the inclination.
I will not do so because I do not need to do so in order to successfully argue for my points that 1- any plan without lots of nuclear is doomed to fail, and 2- the major thing holding back nuclear, and also a fix to climate change, is the Green ideology.
However, I can address some particular cocerns. Let me address some of them in a moment. Still, I see nothing wrong with observing that several countries have already succeeded with nuclear and hydro, and there’s nothing particularly special about their success which could not be replicated as long as we through the Green-aligned politicians to the curb, and I see nothing wrong with observing that – excepting certain poor counties which survive off very large fractions of hydro – no one has done it with renewables alone in spite of repeated efforts.
Let me address some particular concerns now.
EROEI
Note that you are probably citing unbuffered EROEI numbers for solar and wind, e.g. assuming our society could run on intermittent electricity. Start trying to calculate the energy costs for the total system. Given that the total system costs seem to be easily 10x the money cost of the individual solar cells and wind turbines, this means the EROEI of solar and wind based grids could easily be negative (more precisely: ratios of less than 1). And we’ve basically known this for a while. They don’t build solar cells and wind turbines with energy from solar and wind. They build it with energy from coal, natural gas, hydro, and nuclear.
This is probably the study that you cited:
https://www DOT sciencedirect DOT com/science/article/pii/S0301421513003856#bib34– In particular, see what it has to say:See also:
https://www DOT sciencedirect DOT com/science/article/pii/S0301421515302226–For a really good reading on this topic, see here, including the comments.
https://bravenewclimate DOT com/2014/08/22/catch-22-of-energy-storage/Let me pull out this comment in particular:
It seems to be mostly based on 1- gaseous diffusion enrichment, and 2- ridiculous assumptions about decommissions, and 3- pessimitic assumptions about nuclear plant lifetimes, and 4- unfair comparisons between nuclear and the rest by having a much larger boundary of what to include as energy inputs for nuclear compared to their boundaries for solar and wind.
Fuel supply
Suppose we do my plan, and we run out of fuel in 20 years. Then my plan would have been a fabulous success. What matters is not 100 years from now, but 20 years from now. Even if we run out of fuel in 20 years-equivalent from now, that’s 20 more years of R&D with zero emissions from electricity, and if nuclear won’t work after 20 years, then we realy need those 20 additional years of R&D to figure out something else that will, bceause we don’t have an alternative now.
The lower estimates of a mere 20 years or so seem to be based entirely on assumptions that we cannot use lesser ores, but we can use lesser ores for a relatively small final cost increase. This is not a huge difference in the longterm, but a difference between – asspull – 20 years and 100 years. This is more than enough fuel for our plan in the short term. We should be doing it. Again, even if we run out of fuel in 100 years, the plan would still have been a fabulous success.
There’s also seawater extraction. Recent techniques seem very promising at extracting uranium at a final yellowcake cost of merely 5x today’s prices. Fuel costs are a significant but minority cost of nuclear power. At Hinkley C and Vogtle capital costs, this extra cost of fuel is pretty small, but at South Korean upfront capital costs, a 5x cost multiplier on yellowcake translates to a roughly +50% final total electricity cost. Significant, but not impossible for society to absorb. Seawater extraction would be practically infinite because of underwater vulcanism and weathering. Note: It seems to be still lab-scale, so further work is needed. Again, as mentioned above, I don’t need this to argue that we should do the nuclear hydro plan anyway. For further information, here’s something:
https://www DOT forbes DOT com/sites/jamesconca/2016/07/01/uranium-seawater-extraction-makes-nuclear-power-completely-renewable/An alternative: with breeder reactors, our nuclear fuel supply is already practically infinite. With a breeder reactor, everyday rock is nuclear. A regular piece of granite rock has more useable extractible energy than the same volume of coal or oil. Times 20. This has been well known for over 70 years. Again, I don’t need this to work to argue that we should do the nuclear hydro plan anyway. For further information, see:
https://energyfromthorium DOT com/cubic-meter/https://energyfromthorium DOT com/energy-weinberg-1959/Infrastructure and supply train
Yeah. We’ll need to build this out. We’ll need to build more of the facilities that can do the large forging required for conventional light water reactors (there’s only like 2 now in the whole world which can do it). This is not a blocker.
Workers
Yea. We’ll need to train more workers. This can be done. This will take more time. This is not a blocker.
Can be done worldwide in 9 years
In particular, I wrote then you wrote:
My response: And I want a pony.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=I%20want%20a%20pony
In terms of time, my plan is the best plan that you can do.
peer review
You want peer-reviewed papers? That’s why I cited the experts (see above). That’s why I cited the IPCC reports. The latest report had 4 example scenarios, one with just as much nuclear as today, and the other 3 plans involve many times more nuclear than today. And this is from a report with a well-known anti-nuclear bias (see sources above), and which makes improper modeling assumptions, see:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/10/29/top-climate-scientists-warn-governments-of-blatant-anti-nuclear-bias-in-latest-ipcc-climate-report/So, the IPCC reports, which already call for lots more nuclear, have a strong anti-nuclear bias, wihch means that nuclear is even better than that.
Misc
Other misc comments.
I didn’t claim that every nuclear failure is the result of a Green conspircy. I didn’t claim that there was a Green conspiracy at all. I simply claimed that Green dogma remains the /biggest/, not /only/, obstacle to fixing climate change, and I cited several leading climate scientists, including preeminent climate scientist James Hansen, who echo my senitment. I don’t need my claim to apply to China for the claim to be true. I have no intentions right now to defend my claim in the context of China.
Apologies for the comment about wrongly comparing levelized cost vs upfront capital costs. Note: You still got the upfront capital costs wrong by a factor of 1000.
I’ll believe battery tech breakthroughs when I see it. I see a few news article claims of radical battery breakthroughs, only for them to never appear. It’s vaporware until I have firm evidence otherwise. Is Dahn’s work all public? Or are there trade secrets involved?
I also worry about a lithium scarcity issue. There are so many things wrong with renewables, then I didn’t want to copy-paste a whole book. You are right – there isn’t enough lithium in estimated worldwide reserves and resources for even 1 day of storage at 30 TW.
The only countries with very high fractions of renewables are almost exclusively hydro. Extrapolating from “hydro” to “renewables” is improper. Hydro cannot scale much more worldwide than it already has. Thus, using hydro to extrapolate to all of renewables, and especially solar and wind, is grossly inappropriate. I am not in favor of “dismantling” these hydro solutions – unless my fears about methane emissions from hydro proves to be substantiated, and then we might have to tear down the particular offending hydro dams.
I haven’t touched on SMRs because they’re not ready yet, and again I didn’t want to write a book. I think we should continue R&D into all of the above, including many kinds of SMRs, and also all kinds of renewables and storage. I have hope for certain SMR designs, such as NuScale and ThorCon (does ThorCon really count as an SMR? Whatever). However, the problem is immediate enough that we should go with what we know works based on past country-level examples, and that means plain old conventional gen 3+ light water reactors and Canada’s heavy water CANDU reactors. If and when next-gen reactors are proven to work at commercial scale with at least a few years of actual commercial-scale operating experience, then let’s start building those instead. I avoided the SMR conversion because I believe it’s unnecesssary. The problem is the anti-nuclear sentiment which is holding back all nuclear. SMRs are likely to be better, but SMRs won’t assuage the fear of the public because the public is not anti-nuclear because of cost. They’re anti-nuclear because of (other) Green lies.
Solar and wind are being almost exclusively because of government subsidies, as I explained at length. Geothermal is very situational in terms of where it can be (economically) used. That leaves one renewable which is being at large scales, hydro. (And I also already endorsed hydro, with a condition.)
Gerrard, you’re stuck in the 1990s. Back then, I’d have mostly agreed with you.
But we live in C21.
(BTW, my own solar rooftop PV system generates just under 1MW/Hr monthly, which is under a fifth of my actual usage)
Um. Of which my actual usage is under a fifth.
:)
GerrardOfTitanServer
I care right now about convincing the public that nuclear is better in almost every way, and that renewables cannot cut it, especially solar and wind, without heaps of nuclear power.
and on providing data:
”I will do no such thing because I am not qualified to do so and because I lack the inclination.”
“I will not do so because I do not need to do so in order to successfully argue for my points that 1- any plan without lots of nuclear is doomed to fail, and 2- the major thing holding back nuclear, and also a fix to climate change, is the Green ideology.”
So basically, as I understand it, your argument is – “here are problems with renewables, therefore nuclear”? But you won´t do the hard work of demonstrating that nuclear is actually viable in the timeframe and at the scale needed. OK – here´s my issue: that´s exactly the same sort of dogmatic approach that you accuse “Green ideology” of; i.e. “here´s problems with the thing I don´t like – therefore the thing I do like is what we have to go with”. Is that really the approach you think is best when we are making decisions which affect the future of civilisation (and likely humanity in general)? Personally, I would hope for a bit better.
EROEI
Actually I have figures for EROI, EROIext, and EROIsoc, for most renewables (haven´t yet found geothermal, but I´m looking when I have time). I even have a source for dynamic EROI estimating the effect of trying to install renewables in all of Europe within the timeframe necessary to meet the targets (spoiler – the data is pretty worrying). What I would like (which you still haven´t provided) are similar numbers for nuclear. I´m fine with the idea that the cited study I gave is out of date, but it was the most recent I could find which offered a clear and reliable look at nuclear from a trustworthy source – if you have better data, by all means please offer it. Otherwise, there is little I can say except “someone needs to do this work”. Since you don´t seem inclined to either do the work or find someone who has, I´m afraid I don´t find your comment all that helpful.
Fuel Supply
“Suppose we do my plan, and we run out of fuel in 20 years. Then my plan would have been a fabulous success.”
Not necessarily – if we run out of fuel supply in 20 years, what impact will that have on the EROI? This isn´t trying to go “oh, gotcha”, it is pointing out that if you wish to propose nuclear to the exclusion of everything except hydro (bearing in mind hydro can´t be deployed universally, so you likely will be suggesting 100% nuclear for some countries) you should have thought all of this through.
Also, it isn´t just a matter of fuel reserves, it is also our ability to extract and transport the fuel. What if we reach peak extraction in 5 years? What if the demand vastly outstrips supply? And what impact does all of this has on the EROIs? These are the sorts of questions that have long been leveled at renewables (fairly, in my opinion, because they need to be answered). Hall spent a lot of time and energy pointing out that if these questions aren´t answered, the technological proposal is useless. Worse than useless, in many ways, because when it is all a big question mark you might as well just be rolling dice for all the value the assessment has.
Your just handwaving all this away is really not very convincing – frankly, from my perspective you are doing a really poor job of arguing for your position. Imagine, if you will, solar or wind advocates simply turning around and saying “well, it isn´t my job to worry about these sorts of things – I´m the ´big picture´ guy” – do you take that seriously? If not, why would you expect others to take you seriously when you make these sort of statements?
Because, again, the argument “well, nuclear is a better option than (most) renewables, therefore go nuclear” is not really very convincing – because if it turns out nuclear still isn´t good enough, we´re in big trouble and will need other strategies (in addition to or instead of), and no amount of condescending snark will change that.
Infrastructure, supply train, workers, etc.
My point is not “these are blocks”, my point is “these might well be blocks within the time period”. Again, you don´t seem to be giving any real thought to this – you are just saying “well, it´ll all work out – and besides, what other choice is there?”. Again, that isn´t really a sound argument for nuclear.
My response: And I want a pony.
If you don´t get a pony, will that lead to the destruction of human civilisation, mass deaths (likely in the billions) a world mostly or entirely uninhabitable by humans, and potentially such a strong collapse of the ecosystem humans can no longer sustain themselves?
Probably not, so don´t be so condescendingly dismissive.
Stop pretending there aren´t big questions regarding nuclear and big issues which need to be resolved. Stop handwaving this all away and arguing anyone who raises these issues is part of the “green dogma conspiracy” (or whatever you want to label it), and instead buckle up and address these points. Or, if don´t have the expertise or inclination (as you said earlier), maybe at least look and find where people already have? Or even just contact the experts you think have a reasonable take on this and see if they can point you to relevant data – maybe they won´t respond, but how much time does an email actually take?
Because if you want to convince the general public, and someone actually asks you these questions, and your response is as dismissive and data-free as you´ve given here, do you really think this will convince anyone? Anyone at all? Let alone people who are experts in the field and who may not fully agree with your position. And particularly not people who strongly disagree with you. You say you are trying to convince people, after all – make a better case.
One key point is that I´m not saying “we need this in 9 years” because I live in a magical dreamland of hope and gumdrops – I´m saying “we need this in 9 years” because that is the (probably vastly overoptimistic) timescale for avoiding going above 1.5 C. Any plan which is not able to eliminate carbon from power generation by this time is already a disaster – whether you want to admit it, or not (physics can´t be handwaved away, I´m afraid).
If you want to make the argument “nuclear (+hydro) is the least bad option” (or however you want to phrase it) – that´s fine. I would even be prepared to believe it (you know, when actually given evidence and such). But you should then make it clear what we are looking at even as the best-case scenario – more than 1.5 C warming, and climate catastrophe.
”So, the IPCC reports, which already call for lots more nuclear, have a strong anti-nuclear bias, wihch means that nuclear is even better than that.”
One – it hasn´t been demonstrated that there is a strong anti-nuclear bias. At best, you have some respectable authorities (but it would seem still far from a consensus) who are alleging there is. That is enough to be concerning and warrant investigation – it is not enough to draw that conclusion in and of itself.
Two – the assumption “well these are biased; thus the actual numbers must be even better” is so laughably removed from sensible evaluation I have trouble believing you genuinely think this is a good argument. If you don´t have sound data, you have to get sound data – you don´t just eyeball based on what you think the end result is. Would you accept this level of argument from a renewables-only advocate? I think you would (rightly) laugh in their face. Try and think how you sound to someone who is skeptical but convincible – if you wouldn´t accept it from someone arguing against your position, don´t expect others to accept it coming from you.
Three – I looked through your links, but there didn´t seem to be a consensus that there should be zero all-renewables-except-hydro (which is, as I understand it, your position). The arguments as presented in those links (unless I missed it – in which case feel free to quote the relevant text) seemed to be only that there should be more nuclear – but your argument is there should only be nuclear (and hydro where possible – which isn´t going to be applicable everywhere). Moreover, again, no numbers and no data – so how much more nuclear do the experts suggest? And please don´t make the whole “that´s not my job to find out” dodge again – you are making an argument; you have adopted a burden of proof if you want to convince anyone, so you should support it using sound epistemology to an extent that it warrants being accepted. Otherwise, you should just say “there should be a higher degree of nuclear generation” and retract your comments as to how much until you do have that supporting data.
Four – some of your points would be relevant if the majority consensus was “no nuclear”. But, as you yourself note, the majority consensus of experts (including those you disagree with, such as the IPCC) do not hold that position. The argument is not, therefore, “nuclear vs no nuclear” but rather “how much nuclear?”. You don´t seem to want to actually get bogged down in the latter discussion and instead prefer arguing the former. But if the majority consensus already accepts the former, what you need to address is the latter – otherwise you are arguing very frantically against positions that aren´t actually being held. Oh, you can point to Germany´s zero nuclear (you know, except for them being next door to France…), but Germany is not the whole EU – and supposedly many other member states are already contemplating increasing their nuclear power generation capabilities. And if your main argument is “we need more nuclear power”, and that is already the consensus, the fair response would be “yes – now shut up while we work out the logistics” because you are adding nothing to the discussion (and, given your…let´s say “abrasive and forthright” approach, all you are doing is annoying the people who actually have to do the hard work of the justification and number crunching you are so eager to avoid).
So again, peer reviewed data.
Since you raise it – yes, you do cite the IPCC. You also say you think they are wrong and advance an approach which differs (arguably quite considerably) from theirs, so why are you citing them to justify your position? Citing people you don´t agree with, then saying – well I reckon´ they´re all underestimating it, so let´s eyeball the “real values”…well, again, do you really think that´s a convincing argument at all?
Again, you cite experts, but again – the citations you give don´t have any data (so, you know, I have to take these with a pinch of salt – it is, after all, the argument which ultimately matters, not the person advancing it) and it could be the case (absent any evidence to the contrary) that they may also not agree with your position. If the consensus of your cited experts is (just pulling some random numbers to make the point easier to follow – don´t take these as actual figures) 60% nuclear, 20% hydro, 20% other, would you accept that and change your position, or would you still argue for 100% nuclear+hydro? Honestly, I´m not sure it even matters – absent the peer reviewed consensus from established experts with actual numbers supported by data, everything else is just speculation.
I simply claimed that Green dogma remains the /biggest/, not /only/, obstacle to fixing climate change, and I cited several leading climate scientists, including preeminent climate scientist James Hansen, who echo my senitment.
Er..not really. You cited several people who say 100% renewables is not possible. But, as I pointed out by noting Project Drawdown, many people advancing what seems to fall under your definition of “Green Dogma” are not saying 100% renewables either. The question then, as I said before (I am hoping repetition will help make this clear to you), is “how much nuclear, how much hydro, how much etc.”. You´ve adopted the position of “where possible hydro supplemented by nuclear, where it isn´t 100% nuclear”. You have yet to justify that, and (as far as I can tell – but perhaps I missed it) you´ve yet to demonstrate that that is the position of most of the experts you cite either.
And, as a brief note, since China is the biggest emitter of GHGs in the world, any analysis or argument which does not apply to China is…well, not exactly impactful.
“Apologies for the comment about wrongly comparing levelized cost vs upfront capital costs. Note: You still got the upfront capital costs wrong by a factor of 1000.”
Apology completely accepted – we all make mistakes. I will also admit that you are correct of the numbers being out by 1000 – I made a typographical error with a “k” being accidentally inserted (as I said, that was my very first wordpress comment). Maybe be a touch more generous before assigning motivations and competency, eh?
“I’ll believe battery tech breakthroughs when I see it. I see a few news article claims of radical battery breakthroughs, only for them to never appear. It’s vaporware until I have firm evidence otherwise. Is Dahn’s work all public? Or are there trade secrets involved?”
Absolutely fair position – the proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say. You can find a relevant paper here (DOI: 10.1149/2.0981913jes) and a youtube presentation here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOQQTwYkg08&t=1348s).
The reason I am relatively confident in the battery technology is because Jeff has been focused on scaleup and tech transfer to industry for decades now – he is generally the grumpy guy sitting at the back who, whenever an academic starts banging on about “here´s my new fancy material”, points out that unless it is industrially viable it is more-or-less just intellectual w**kery (in one memorable conference, that was the exact word he used – as I said, pretty grumpy [arguably justifiably so] about the value of pure academic research). He could be wrong on these results, of course, but I would be surprised if he is – he´s normally relatively cautious.
But again, trust but verify and all that jazz.
I avoided the SMR conversion because I believe it’s unnecesssary.
Fair enough – thanks for offering the thoughts you have provided. Again, not snark – I do appreciate it. You are (I think it is fair to say) fairly pro-nuclear – it is good to have your perspective as an advocate on how you see the status of these technologies.
That leaves one renewable which is being at large scales, hydro. (And I also already endorsed hydro, with a condition.)
Hmm, except I still don´t think you´ve justified your position – you´ve made a reasonable case for “more nuclear” (I would generally accept that, though again I´d like to see the numbers), but I don´t think you´ve done a great job of demonstrating wind and solar should be completely eliminated from the picture.
My suggestion (for what it is worth, so feel free to ignore) would be to spend a bit of time looking at the data. Rather than just making the case for > 0 nuclear, make a case for how much (and how much of the others) supported with data – otherwise it seems to be mostly speculation, I´m afraid. And while the > 0 nuclear argument may have made sense in the 90s and 00s, it now seems that the discussion has moved on quite a bit. Indeed, as far as I am aware even the recent Biden-Harris plans include expanded nuclear – maybe you feel it doesn´t include enough or enough in the right areas of nuclear, but that is rather the point I am making here.
I mean, here´s an article (well, just one article from Forbes, so take with salt, etc.) which seems to show people are generally favorable to nuclear (https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2020/08/17/what-will-a-biden-harris-administration-do-for-nuclear-energy/?sh=3ea97a0b1dd9). If this is the case, maybe you need to reevaluate what point you are trying to make?
This is not me trying to be dismissive or obstinate – I´m actually fairly “pro-nuclear” even by your lights, though probably not quite to the extent you are – I just want to see good sound discussion of this sort of thing. For me, we simply don´t have the time or the buffer-room to be able to indulge speculation, and what we need is good solid data – I hope, regardless of what else we may disagree on, we can at least agree on that.
GerrardOfTitanServer
Oh, and one final remark – again, I would strongly recommend you look at each EU country, the division of Nuclear, Hydro, Solar, Wind, etc., the GHG emissions, and how all of this has changed over the last decade or two. Start with France, finish with Germany, look at all the ones in between.
If you are so inclined, I think this will help you with finding relevant data.
But again, just a suggestion from a random person on the internet – so, you know, take it for what it is worth.
John
Please at least get your units right.
Also, I don’t even know why I engage with you. You’re a troll. You could at least pretend in this case to have read and understood my lengthy preemptive rebuttal.
…
Cutty Snarks
I don’t get it. Why would nuclear not be viable at scale for a large portion of our electricity production worldwide? I don’t see any problems with it. I’ve (minimally) dealt with some problems already. I also have the leading scientists and leading scientific report (the IPCC) behind me saying that any solution must contain large amounts of nuclear, and I have those leading scientists saying that the report is much too pessimistic re nuclear and nuclear is even better than that. I’m not a publishing professional scientist. If you want to see all of the fine details, then check out the peer review, like the IPCC reports, and the professional scientists takes on the IPCC reports. You can’t reasonably expect me to write the papers, and I’ve already linked to the leading papers and scientists.
No one says we’re going to reach peak uranium in 5 years. Even the most conservative estimates place it at like 20 or 30, and those estimates assume that we convert all of our energy usage (IIRC not just electricity) to nuclear, and we switch the entire world at once, which is obviously not happening, and so we’ll get a lot of benefit from some nuclear. Also, these most conservative estimates ignore lesser ores which are still quite economic (and presumably still energy-efficient ala EROEI) to extract. As I said before, if the nuclear solution breaks down because of fuel supply or EROEI after 20 years, then nuclear would have still been a fabulous success because it would give us 20 more years of R&D to fix the problem.
Re EROEI. If you must, I’ll try to find the best sources on this, but it will take me a while, and I’ll have to get back to you later. I’m not worried about EROEI and you shouldn’t be either for a very simple reason: energy density. A solar panel might produce 200 W daily average per square meter for 30 years. The total energy output over lifetime of the same volume of uranium yellowcake is like 6 orders of magnitude higher. In terms of other material input, nuclear uses less steel and concrete than the same average power output of solar and wind. I just don’t see how it’s remotely plausible that EROEI is going to be a problem for nuclear – not unless we start talking about mining literal everyday rock. There, the work has also been done, I linked to it above. Let me reproduce it again: energyfromthorium DOT com/energy-weinberg-1959/ — Note the year. 1959. This is old news.
I simply reject your requirement that it must happen within 9 years. That’s not how this discussion should be happening. We should be evaluating all of the potential options, and choosing the best. None of the possible solutions meet your criteria. The response should not be to stick your hands in your ears and close your eyes and say “lalala I can’t hear you”. Nothing is going to make humanity greenhouse gas neutral in 9 years – nothing short of worldwide genocide.
I’ll try.
No. There are no big problems that need to be resolved except for political problems – just obstinate people steeped in Green lies. France shows this. France rebuts every one of your claims except maybe fuel supply and the plausible knock-on effect on EROEI.
I have linked to the leading scientists, and indirectly to the leading scientific report on this matter, the IPCC.
Why? I said that the best and only option we have is nuclear plus hydro for 99% of electricity generation. Why should I also have to say this other thing that you want me to say?
Maybe you should read the letters and other scientific work that I linked to, instead of pretending that I didn’t.
www DOT forbes DOT com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/10/29/top-climate-scientists-warn-governments-of-blatant-anti-nuclear-bias-in-latest-ipcc-climate-report/
linked to
passiiviidentiteetti DOT wordpress DOT com/2018/10/26/ipcc-and-uranium-supply-limits/
I will settle for the weaker position of the IPCC reports that nuclear must be a large portion of any workable solution. If I can get someone to agree to at least that, then all of my hard work is done, and I think everything will sort itself out, and I think you’ll find that most countries will then naturally gravitate towards mostly nucear + hydro with some exceptions. I personally believe that nuclear + hydro is the best and practically only solution for 99% of electricity, but I don’t need to convince you of that to win. I just need to convince you that we need, say, 20% nuclear, for the sake of argument, and that the Greens are an obstacle to that, and that Greens are the biggest obstacle to fixing the problem because of their resistance to nuclear power. If I can get enough people to believe that, then I can be confident that we’ll start fixing this problem.
I don’t even understand how this relates to anything. This started by me attacking the points of a psoter above who said that all renewables is the way to go. I branched out and said that this sentiment is the biggest obstacle to fixing climate change. It seems like a majority of the relevant experts say we need lots of nuclear, but the problem is that too many people are listening to the wrong “experts”, and following Green dogma instead of science.
Because it supports my weaker position that we need lots of nuclear to fix this problem. And because I can use it to support my stronger position by noticing the anti-nuclear bias in it.
Please learn to read.
Your counterexample is not a sufficient rebuttal to my position. You only have to look at how much nuclear is being built, and look at the reasons why they’re not being built, and in most cases, it’s Green dogma holding it back.
Consider what a working solution might look light. 100% nuclear and hydro. Why would you add wind and solar to that? You would use all of the hydro that you can do handle daily peaking to reduce wear and tear on the nuclear plants, and to maximize the utility of the nuclear plants (because fixed costs). Even then, you’re likely to need to load-follow with the nuclear power plants. Adding more solar and wind won’t let you reduce the number of nuclear power plants and hydro plants. Adding solar and wind would just increase total system costs. Sure, you might try to add batteries or more transmission, but then we’re back to the original problems that I cited, which is that in most cases, it’s just cheaper to build another nuclear power plant to do peaking than it is to do all of that solar, wind, transmission, storage, etc., stuff. Intermittent, undispatchable, unreliable electricity is close to worthless.
I also strongly suspect we’ll need geo-engineering. I don’t know how plausible a space umbrella is, and depending on details, it might have some significant geopolitical ramifications to shade certain parts of the Earth. The best geo-engineering proposal that I’ve seen is the brute force carbonate rock to quicklime approach, using basalt deposits as a sink for the concentrated CO2 stream.
https://energycentral.com/c/ec/carbonate-solution-part-1-brute-force
This would require oodles of clean cheap energy, so, again, even more nuclear.
I suppose artificial weathering too. I don’t know how that compares to this brute force carbonate plan.
Gerrard, heh. Nearly one million watt-hours per month, averaged. More than that during the sunny season.
—
Way ahead of you (#6).
Gerrard:
Mmmhmm. And yet, people are voting with their wallets, at least where I live.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Australia
John,
How is that coal mining going for you? Should I look up how many new coal power plants or natural gas plants have been built recently? And how about those blackouts from the common mode failure trips of wind turbines that one time? Or how about that one time that you voted in politicians who got a greenhouse gas emissions tax, and then immediately voted them out with other politicians who reverted that greenhouse gas emissions tax? Australia is not a beacon of success. Far from it. Australia is near the top of the list. 25 metric tons of co2e per capita per year. Germany at 11. France at 7, and Sweden at 5.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhouse_gas_emissions_per_capita
From where I’m sitting, Australia is just another dismal failure because of its embracing of renewables because of the irrational and delusional fears regarding nuclear power.
PS: To be fair, that information is out of date. However, Australia appears to still be quite a bit worse than Germany.
Gerrard, point being, regular people are installing these systems on their rooftops.
Clearly, neither they (nor I) see it as almost worthless.
Proof of the pudding is in the electricity bill.
(Typical break-even is 2-3 years, after that it’s all gravy)
Not coincidentally, large-scale generation is following a similar pattern.
Also, I wanted to emphasize that I have been posting links to lots of numbers, data, and peer review, albeit indirectly. My direct URL citations include many more citations. For example, one of the open letters that I cited lists out the reasons to claim an anti-nuclear bias in the IPCC reports, and has direct primary peer-reviewed sources to support the letter’s claims.
Previously posted:
www DOT forbes DOT com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/10/29/top-climate-scientists-warn-governments-of-blatant-anti-nuclear-bias-in-latest-ipcc-climate-report/
Links to:
environmentalprogress DOT org/big-news/2018/10/25/open-letter-to-heads-of-state-of-the-g-20-from-scientists-and-scholars-on-nuclear-for-climate-change
Contains the following citations: (Note that most of the citations include direct hyperlinks – not reproduced here.)
John
Personal rooftop solar only makes financial sense in one of two cases: 1- large amounts of government subsidies, direct and indirect, see comment above for a full listing and description, and 2- off-grid scenarios. In my giant comment above, I suppose I forgot to mention feed-in tariffs and similar schemes that allow individual building to sell back solar to the grid. Those are typically another form of subsidy, again for all of the reasons that I mentioned above.
In other words, if you on grid, it’s going to be much more expensive to try to go completely off-grid without using the grid as a “giant battery”. People who buy solar are mooching off of the grid, and not just for storage, but also inertia and other frequency control services, blackstart capability. Either the standalone personal solar system is going to be much more expensive, or much less reliable (many more days of reduced or no electricity), or both.
Even though I personally consume less than one unit out of every 6 units I generate?
The grid gets more than 5 units per unit I consume, and I’m mooching?
Heh.
More to the point, the grid is (even as we speak) becoming modernised.
Still mostly that superseded model of centralised generation and one-way delivery, but changing as we speak. Still at the bottom of the S curve, but one can see where it’s going.
(Might as well talk about incandescent light bulbs when talking about lighting, as talking about the grid as it still remains)
“Also, I don’t even know why I engage with you. You’re a troll.”
Hello there pot, let me introduce you to kettle…
lochaber
Oh, go fuck yourself. I engage with honesty, sources, and good will. Half of John’s posts are asinine nitpicks without any purpose except to stroke his own ego.
John
Electricity is not a commodity. It’s a service. 5 units of electricity delivered when you don’t need it – that’s 5 mostly useless units of electricity. Electricity cannot be feasibly stored at scale. Electricity can either be consumed immediately, or it’s wasted. This could change if cheap, scalable electricity storage existed, but it doesn’t.
Your solar panels could not provide power at night, or during particularly overcast days. Solar panels cannot power the industrial processes which underlie our society at night or during particularly overcast days, and many / most these industrial processes must run 24-7. These are not something that you can just switch off 20% of the time when there’s no sun or wind available.
Go ahead and talk all you want about how much surplus useless solar you have – it won’t change the reality that Australia is still one of the worst countries in the world on this topic with about 75% of its electricity coming from coal power plants, and that it’s renewables plans will not work to eliminate fossil fuel use on the grid.
Solar and wind can work to get to 30% of the grid easily enough. You’ll have certain pain points, like what we see in Germany’s grid today. Frequency and voltage fluctuations. Rising prices. I’d be amazed if they reached 80%, which some people say is reasonably achievable, but which wouldn’t be enough for our climate goals. It’s basically impossible to achieve 100% with just wind and solar, and there’s nothing else in the renewables basket that can scale at cost. One might say “hydro”, but even hydro is too small to be anything but a rounding error when our target must be something like replacing 30+ TW worldwide. We’ll easily need 50 TW by the end of the century, and maybe even 70 TW.
Sure.
Most recently commissioned power plant: 1993.
Our current government tried really hard to get a new one built, pressured AGL to keep one running, and what with carrot-and stick induced it to continue operating until 2023.
But things look grim for coal in Oz. Just isn’t economical.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/01/influx-of-renewables-sees-coal-power-plants-run-well-below-capacity-increasing-chance-of-closures
See, mostly we export it overseas. Coal jobs, you know.
Whyever would I do that? I’ll stick with the money-saving rooftop, as a very concrete example of the change that’s taking place.
Ahem. Most recent official data:
https://www.energy.gov.au/publications/australian-energy-statistics-table-o-electricity-generation-fuel-type-2018-19-and-2019
Anyway. You only have to walk down the street in my neighbourhood.
Maybe 10% of dwellings lack solar panels.
It just makes economic sense, useless as you might theorise it to be.
—
For the umpteenth time (for readers who are unaware, this is his hobby-horse, been at it for years, mostly under his old ‘nym) nuclear would be nice were it socially and politically feasible and were it sufficiently safeguarded and prevented from contributing to nuclear proliferation, but it ain’t — and more to the point, it’s not needful. I have no problem with nuclear per se, but I also live now, not back in the 1980s and 1990s. Things have changed.
I grant renewables might be more expensive up-front, but they are pretty darn safe and can indeed do the job. And the market is trending that way. We’re already in transition.
(I know you ignore recent developments in large-scale energy storage as much as you do grid improvements, but I can’t help that, much as I try and have tried)
GerrardOfTitanServer @ 34
Sigh. For reasons which I hope will become apparent in this post I will keep my reply relatively brief.
1) Whether or not you (a self-described non-expert) see problems with establishing nuclear (+hydro) worldwide is irrelevant. What is needed are systematic studies into this which determine whether or not there are issues, how large the issues are, how best to address these potential issues, and so on and so forth. There is a reason why we don’t rely on what people can or can’t see, and instead follow the evidence.
2) I have read the IPCC report, I have talked to experts in the field for their takes. I have a reasonable level of confidence that I have a fairly good (if slightly simplistic) understanding of the current take on the most recent IPCC report. And no – I don’t expect you to write papers yourself. But if you are citing a paper or experts to support your position, what you cite should support your position. Otherwise, I’m afraid you still have to do the work of supporting your position.
Because you know what the IPCC report doesn´t say? – “some hydro, everything else nuclear”.
And again, for what feels like the bazzilionth time, if you just want to claim “I support more nuclear to the extent recommended by the IPCC” and cite the IPCC report to support that position, that’s fine. I already did not disagree with that, so you have will have merely wasted a lot of my time (one suspects I am not the first person who´s time you´ve wasted, and that I will be far from the last).
But, to be clear, the IPCC position is not what you proposed to me – you made a different claim as to how much nuclear (everything except hydro) and how much solar+wind (zero). You can’t point to the IPCC report and say “read that” to support that position, because it doesn’t support that position. And asserting “well they say more nuclear, I say more nuclear – therefore it supports my position of only nuclear+hydro” is pretty obviously wrong. The IPCC report does not agree with the % nuclear you proposed – until either you change your position to agree with it, or you provide additional supporting evidence which does agree with your proposal citing the IPCC report simply does not support your position of 100% hydro+nuclear.
I don’t know how to explain this any clearer.
(there is also a similar issue with the citations of experts you make [which I have repeatedly pointed out to you], in that again you have not demonstrated they agree with your position of only hydro+nuclear. But if I have to keep pointing out every time you indulge in this sort of deeply unsound practice, I will be here all day).
3) You make a lot of “well, I can´t see any problem…” type statements. I am not overly interested in what you can or cannot see – I am looking for data and not opinion.
4) Sigh. It is not “my requirement it must happen in 9 years”. For someone who so readily resorts to “can you read???” type insults, you are pretty bad at reading yourself. My point (as I stated quite carefully so I am at a loss as to how you have misunderstood this) is 9 years is the target to keep to the 1.5 C target. We don’t have to reduce to 0 GHG power in 9 years – it is simply that if we don´t we will likely go above the 1.5 C limit. Now, you may not understand this, but we do not want to go above the 1.5 C limit. Let me try this again. WE. DO NOT. WANT. TO GO. ABOVE. THE 1.5 C. LIMIT. It will be bad.
So again, since you appear to be hard of thinking, we certainly could keep GHG emitting power beyond 9 years. Indeed, we could, in principle, keep GHG emitting power until civilisation breaks down to such a point as to prevent it. The point is about the advisability of doing so.
I don’t know how else to explain this to you.
You are not arguing with me on this one – you are arguing with physics, and physics does not really care how much condescending snark or how many insults you lob at it.
5) “None of the possible solutions meet your criteria.”
You are now making a new assertion – i.e. that it is impossible for any solution to get us to net 0 carbon-based power by 2030. You have not yet demonstrated that this assertion is true. I wonder if you will attempt to do so by providing a detailed analysis of all possible technologies and all possible rollout scenarios to substantiate this claim.
6) “No. There are no big problems that need to be resolved except for political problems”
That is a claim. I wonder if you will support it by with a detailed analysis of all the possible problems likely to face transitioning the entire world to nuclear (and not simply “well you haven’t proven me wrong”, “well here’s someone who has said ‘more nuclear’ is needed”, “here is one country which has high levels of nuclear”, etc., but actual data and actual analysis of the actual position you have actually proposed).
7) “France rebuts every one of your claims except maybe fuel supply and the plausible knock-on effect on EROEI.”
“Here´s one country that has a high level of nuclear – therefore the entire world can have only nuclear (and some hydro) with no problems!” Well, I´ll give you this – you are consistent in the quality of your arguments, if nothing else.
Sorry, actually that should probably read “you are consistent in the quality of your arguments, and nothing else”.
My point, since apparently it flew over your head, was not “here are the exact issues I definitely claim exist with your proposal”. My point was, here are the sorts of questions which have had to be answered by proponents of renewable energy – similar (but not exactly the same) questions likely have to be addressed regarding an incredibly short-term global rollout of nuclear. You can tell this if you look closely, because I wrote “These are the sorts of questions that have long been leveled at renewables (fairly, in my opinion, because they need to be answered)”. Unlike you I don´t need to sneer “can you read?”, because you´ve already demonstrated no, no you really cannot.
I suspect there are questions which may fairly be asked of a proposal for global nuclear+hydro rollout (I won´t pretend to have sufficient expertise to ask an exhaustive list), but it is telling you can´t conceive that that might be the case.
Since you are apparently you are incapable of reasoning for yourself, I´ll help you out a bit. Here is an example of one potentially important question. How does the EROIext value of a technology vary depending on implementation? This is important because of the implications for civilisation should this value dip too low. One approach to answering this question is to conduct an in-depth study using the best data available as well as modelling of various potential rollout scenarios in order to build up a picture of what will happen depending on rollout scale and timescale. This is the approach people investigating the impact of rapid renewable rollout took. Another approach is to point at a country with a high level of that technology already, wiggle your eyebrows meaningfully, and say “how hard could it be?”. That is the approach you are taking.
One of these approaches is more systematic, methodological, and valuable than the other. Maybe if you spend enough time thinking about it, you might eventually realise which one.
I will also notice you still haven´t got around to looking at what I suggested you should look at. How much of France’s power is nuclear? How much is hydro? How much is solar and wind? Do you know all these values? I do. Now, how did these percentages change in 2018, and 2019. Do you know? I do.
Ultimately, what France shows is that you can run France (FYI France =/= the entire world) with a high level of nuclear power. It does not demonstrate a country running only hydro + nuclear, nor does it show that hydro + nuclear is the only possible model, nor does it show this can be scaled to the entire world, nor does it show it can be scaled to the entire world in a timescale which won’t result in the destruction of our civilisation. All of those things are things still to be demonstrated.
But given you don´t seem to understand that guesses based on assumptions by a non-expert =/= sound and methodological studies examining as many possibilities as possible, I doubt you´ll understand this point either.
8)I have linked to the leading scientists, and indirectly to the leading scientific report on this matter, the IPCC.
And, as I have noted, the IPCC does not agree with your position (“only nuclear + hydro”), and you haven’t demonstrated that the leading scientists do either.
9) ”Why should I also have to say this other thing that you want me to say?”
Because you are proposing a course of action which will (according to the best current understanding of climate change) lead us to go above 1.5 C. Do you not think this is an important thing for people to be aware of?
I mean, if you are quite happy to avoid taking responsibility for the consequences of the approach you suggest, that is your prerogative. I don’t think it is particularly honest to do so – but again, I’m just one person on the internet, you certainly are under no obligation to me. I do muse about whether this is the level of ethical responsibility you typically employ – but admittedly not very hard, as I suspect I could make an educated guess at this point.
10) Maybe you should read the letters and other scientific work that I linked to, instead of pretending that I didn’t.
I read them.
In what you cite as proof (not evidence for, but proof of) of ideologically motivated anti nuclear bias within the IPCC, I found claims of bias in the IPCC and a few examples of what could be bias (or could be honest mistakes, or could be human error, or could be over simplification, or could be something else), but what I did not see was a demonstration of “strong ideologically motivated anti nuclear bias”. I certainly didn’t see any demonstration that any anti nuclear bias there may have been (because apparently we are not allowed to consider that people can be wrong for reasons other than deliberate dishonesty) was as a direct result of ideologically motivated scientists. It was asserted, but to demonstrate you’d have to actually start providing evidence of ideology at some point. You know – that whole “linking evidence to the claim” thing you don´t seem to understand.
Again, my position is not the contrapositive, I just am unconvinced you have demonstrated what you believe you have demonstrated.
Also, I have also never “pretended you haven’t read the papers”. That you are strawmanning me yet again is rather irritating, and that you repeatedly resort to this sort of tactic demonstrates you are particularly prone to dishonesty (one reason I am not going to interact with you any further).
11) I will settle for the weaker position of the IPCC reports that nuclear must be a large portion of any workable solution.
I would generally support the IPCC position. Most people probably would. Had that been your starting position, I doubt I would have needed to waste the amount of time on you that I have.
Because it supports my weaker position that we need lots of nuclear to fix this problem.
Certainly, providing your weaker position is in keeping with the actual values given by the IPCC.
And because I can use it to support my stronger position by noticing the anti-nuclear bias in it.
No, you can´t – I’ve already explained that this is not a sound and valid approach.
If you think there is a flaw in the methodology of an analysis, you should conduct a new analysis with a better methodology. You should not just “adjust for bias” (particularly when the bias is as vague as “anti nuclear” and you do not know how that would effect the models and in what specific ways).
People have employed the approach you are proposing here in research before – they get fired for it. If you don´t understand why, that is a major problem with your epistemology.
Please learn to read
I can read. I can also search the text for examples where people provide data regarding the “only nuclear + hydro” proposal you have made. If data regarding “only nuclear + hydro” was there, I will admit I missed it – if so, by all means point me to the study of “only nuclear + hydro” within your links.
If, on the other hand, there isn´t a study with data explicitly for the “only nuclear + hydro” proposal, then not only was I correct in my statement but also you are a condescending idiot.
Final remark
I don’t think future interaction is going to be productive for me. I started this with the position on not disagreeing with the IPCC report (tentatively – as I hold all my positions), and since you claim you would accept that then there seems little more to discuss.
I will note that you are a pretty unpleasant individual who repeatedly resorts to insult and accusation instead of engaging with the conversation, and who appears to have some very…idiosyncratic approaches to how they try to establish the best possible understanding of the world around them.
Given you have done nothing to change my position, provided no significant additional clarity, and repeatedly demonstrated yourself to be flawed (both in terms of epistemology and character), I doubt I will bother reading anything more from you.
Despite not being superstitious, I will wish you luck with your endeavor of trying to convince people of your position – given the approach you use, I think you will need all you can get.
“I engage with honesty, sources, and good will.”
You most certainly do not. The last time I tried to engage with you, you kept insisting that “greenies” out spent the fossil fuel industry in propaganda. I kept asking you for a source on that, and you eventually backed down, admitting you had no source, and then accused me of nit-picking on one detail.
You gish-gallop and move goalposts. The majority of your sources are from right-wing rags, nuclear industry propaganda, or are several decades old. You are not arguing in good faith. You are a troll.
Yup, the future is going to be a hellscape.
I apologized for that wrongheaded off the cuff remark, and I retracted it, and I’ll do so again here. Saying I “insisted” is a rather bad misscharacterization.
I don’t think so. Check my sources here. I’ve been particularly emphaszing the IPCC reports and the words of leading climate scientists.
…
As I said, I am pushing a weak position and a string position. I’m glad you already agree with the weak position. However, I am still quite dismayed by you. One of the first things you did here was to compare solar cell vs nuclear power plant costs as an argument that solar (probably?) has a place. As I’ve explained at length, this could only be written by someone ignorant of the real issues, again because of the difference between intermittent vs dispatchable electricity. I would ask you to not do that in the future.
One of the other first things you did in this thread was compare unbuffered solar and wind EROEI to nuclear EROEI. Again, this is quite ignorant or unethical. One also needs to include the energy cost of turning intermittent electricity into dispatchable electricity. Please don’t do that again. You should know better.
I haven’t even started on using outdated EROEI numbers of nuclear which include gaseous diffusion enrichment. Sorry, I’ll try to get some better sources on that soon. Once I get those sources, I would ask that you stop repeating this bit of misinformation too please.
So, for having no skin on the game, and already accepting the IPCC calls for more nuclear, you’re doing a pretty good job of spreading more lies and misinformation about nuclear.
John,
Ok, so 56% coal generation. This is still not something that you should be saying “look at how great we are!”. This should be a deep source of shame.
Yea, market distortions from government interference can do that.
…
PS:
Cutty Snark
The level of analysis that you’re demanding is quite extreme, and IMO somewhat unreasonable, especially in this context. However, I’ll try to find the EROEI papers, and I’ll try to find some papers evaluating the whole of a 99% hydro + nuclear solution.
When there is a deep disagreement between two sides, the truth need not lie somewhere in the middle. Sometimes one side is just wrong. I can conceive of the abstract possibility that something would prevent my plan. I can conceive of the concrete possibility that fuel supplies are too limited, or that sufficiently accessible (in an EROEI sense) fuel supplies are too limited. I can conceive of the concrete possibility that nuclear is inherently too low EROEI to sustain modern civilization. However, when I look at these considerations, and every other consideration that I can think of, every single time it is clear to me that 99% nuclear + hydro for electricity can work.
IIRC, nuclear dipping, and solar wind increasing, but that’s not due to any technical reason. It’s just Green dogma getting in the way again.
Oh please. This is ridiculous. You’re just being needlessly obtuse.
Did I claim otherwise?
Not really, no, because all courses of action go above that. And yes, I know that you are demanding me to provide peer-reviewed proof in triplicate or something, but I feel no such need to make such a rather obvious claim, and I currently refuse to bow to your demands in this particular case. If you are not satisfied, then you are not satisfied. I would feel similarly if you started asking for proof that the sky is blue.
Do you think that normally cautious scientists would not carefully review the evidence and other possibilities before signing their names to that letter? I assume that they’re basing this off of personal interactions with other scientists and editors of the report, and the background knowledge of this wide anti-nuclear sentiment in society and in parts of academia.
Eye witness testimony might be the worst kind of evidence that exists, but it is still evidence. Eye witness testimony from people who were deeply involved in the act, and who are also leading respected academics and experts, lends some slight additional value to their testimony. Again, you’re simply demanding a level of near absolute proof which I believe is unreasonable to demand or expect, and that the evidence that we have is sufficient to make these tentative conclusions.
Oh come on. There’s plenty of people who believe the lie that 100% renewables can do it. This all started with someone upthread making that claim. Just listen to the mainstream media, and nuclear power is a pariah, and 100% renewables plans are constantly being praised, with faux experts, liars, and shills like Mark Jacobson being trotted out. (If you want proof regarding Jacobson, I have the citations offhand.) You’re being willfully ignorant if you really think that most people accept that we need loads more nuclear power plants than exist today.
Re EROEI
First, I must again caution you that it’s foolhardy to compare EROEI numbers from different studies because of the different methodologies in use. These different methodologies can drastically change the result. For example, whether to include labor as an energy input, and whether to include feeding them, their family, their children, as energy input, and whether to include all of the energy inputs necessary for their education in energy input, etc. I’ve seen some studies do this, in the form of assuming a cash-wages-to-energy-input equivalence.
Let’s get into some sources.
I wouldn’t go to Hall as the best modern numbers for EROEI. Rather, I think Weissbach is a much better source.
festkoerper-kernphysik DOT de/Weissbach_EROI_preprint.pdf
…
www DOT world-nuclear DOT org/information-library/energy-and-the-environment/energy-return-on-investment.aspx
…
So, the first paper properly address the differences in EROEI that we’re seeing, and identifies the causes for the discrepancies, including many that I named (and including some I forgot – e.g. plant lifetime). Nuclear EROEI, when properly analyzed, is exceptionaly high.
The second paper in particular addresses the concern about energy costs from lesser fuel ore. The energy cost of mining the ore is quite small. The energy costs of enrichment and plant construction and maintenance are much higher.
Assuming the conclusions in the papers are reputable, this pretty much demolishes your concerns about EROEI, even in the context of lesser fuel ores for the near future.
Next, let me try to find some papers that attempt to analyze all potential problems of a hypothetical 99% hydro nuclear worldwide electricity solution.
Aside.
Re the “big Green conspiracy”, one should see this link.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/apr/05/anti-nuclear-lobby-misled-world
It includes many primary citations for the claims being made.
It does not claim a conspiracy in the traditional sense. Rather, I can easily explain this in terms of a traditional religion or cult. One does not need a conspiracy to explain the existence of ex Catholicism, or even Mormonism. Independent actors without conspiratorial coordination can explain how these manifestly false beliefs continue to exist in today’s society.
Consider what it means for the leading authorities of the worldwide Green movement to be consumate liars or delusional conspiracy theorists, like Helen Caldicott, and also “academic experts” like Mark Jacobson (citations available upon request). The entire Green ideological movement is rotten to the core, led by liars, frauds, and delusional “true believers”.
And you would be foolish in the extreme to underestimate their impact on public policy, as you have done. Mark Jacobson’s 100% WWS paper and subsequent has been hugely influential in policy circles. It forms a basis for the lie that is frequently promulgated that we can do 100% renewables, and that it would be cheap (or not too expensive) to do so.
Here’s one paper. It doesn’t consider all of the possible objections. Rather, it just considers the speed at which something like a 100% nuclear solution could be built. To my amazement, it seems like it would be fast enough to limit global temp rise to less than 1.5 C. I understand that this paper doesn’t really try to find and address potential feasibility problem that would arise from scaling up from two countries to the world. I’m still looking for that. It’s proving hard to find such a thing.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-world-really-could-go-nuclear/
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0124074
Firstly, I will pre-emptively apologise to the bloghost for risking provoking yet more tedious frustration, as well as to anyone reading (who I suspect may well be bored to tears by these posts by now). As previously noted, I have neither the interest nor intent to continue pointless and unpleasant interactions any further – for while points of agreement and disagreement might have been interesting to unpack, it is exhausting to deal with constant aggression, contempt, accusations, and insults.
While I have endeavoured offer the benefit of the doubt regarding errors or insufficient justification of positions, it has been made abundantly clear through continued contemptuous and sneering responses that not everyone is capable of reciprocation. It is very difficult (if not impossible) to have reasoned discourse when one party continually behaves as though the other is dishonest, and I will freely admit I lack the time and patience necessary to do so (perhaps a failing on my part).
Of course, even if I did possess both and were so inclined, there seems little point to me, I’m afraid. I could, for example, point out that (as is well known) assigning storage to individual technologies will tend to overestimate storage requirements for VREs (due to the necessisty of including regional variations in more accurate assessments). With a reasonable person this might develop into an interesting discussion regarding the best nuanced approach for energy production analysis – however, in this case I suspect it would not (sadly some seem only interested in nuance to the degree it facilitates poisoning the well). I suppose I could descend into the dull and dreary quagmire of ad hominem attacks, but I am not overly interested in such rhetorical point scoring and would prefer instead to develop more productive conversations. Given that it seems reasonable to me to conclude future discourse along these lines is only likely to continue to deteriorate, I will extend my policy to ignoring individuals prone to abusive and/or egregious posts to any and all future threads.
To divert away from such unpleasantness, I would instead prefer to provide a little perspective to the reader:
As I noted in the Forbes article I previously linked to, it seems to be a majority opinion amongst the general populace that nuclear must play a role in future energy generation (echoed by the American Nuclear Society survey https://www.ans.org/news/article-314/public-opinion-on-nuclear-energy-turning-a-corner/). This position is also held by the IPCC, and the consensus amongst experts in the field.
As far as I can tell, it is even considered to be mainstream by many governments, researchers, and environmental activists (a non-comprehensive list may be found with a few seconds of googling: https://climatecoalition.org/pronuclear-groups/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-nuclear_movement; https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/world-energy-needs-and-nuclear-power.aspx). Indeed, even though there are some outliers (such as the oft-mentioned Germany) nuclear power is still currently planned to expand world wide (https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/plans-for-new-reactors-worldwide.aspx). And, of course, as previously noted, the Biden-Harris plan includes additional funding for the nuclear power field.
In short, supporting increased nuclear power generation would seem to be far from unusual, and is more-or-less quite conventional (dare I say almost “mainstream”?).
However, as far as I can tell it is true that the position of supporting nuclear to the exclusion of all renewables (except, with caveats, hydro) is a little atypical. To give an idea as to the degree that this is the case, it may be worth examining not only the positions of the bulk of experts – but also those of those experts who are pro-nuclear.
First, and most simply, it is worth noting the IPCC position regarding the importance of expanding nuclear and renewables (it is worth remembering that the IPCC does a generally good job of representing experts in relevant fields).
I might also quickly nod towards the letter from James Hansen et al, which includes the passage “Renewables like wind and solar and biomass will certainly play roles in a future energy economy”. But of course care is needed here – a letter is just a letter, and it is wise not to place too much stock in it (no matter the authors).
I might also reference one paper which might reasonably be categorised as pro-nuclear “How much can nuclear energy do about global warming?” (DOI: 10.1504/IJGEI.2017.10000873), which considers the case for nuclear and renewables (including wind and solar) and concludes “It seems physically and economically possible to multiply by 50 the production of nuclear energy by 2100, leading to a complete elimination of fossil fuels. Together with the use of renewable energy, this would both answer the climate challenge and give a perennial solution to humanity’s energy needs for thousands of years”.
I could continue along these lines, but I would hope that pointing to not only the IPCC but some strong proponents of nuclear energy is sufficient to give some idea. It would appear that even compared to some of the fiercest critics of renewables and some of the strongest proponents of nuclear power, completely discounting non-hydro renewables is something of an outlier. I hope this indicates why I would be cautious regarding such approaches – I am not trying to be unreasonable, but instead merely look for evidence sufficient to warrant reaching such a conclusion.
I would, of course, not claim to be an expert in the field of climate research (as I said, I focus on storage), so instead I prefer to rely on sound science from the experts in the field. As far as I can tell, examining credible sources across a range of disciplines and the varoius approaches advocated (including technological, social, etc.), I have adopted (tentatively, as with all my evaluations) the position best supported by evidence and most in keeping with the majority of scientists, researchers, and experts in the relevant fields (including pro-nuclear advocates).
While there certainly is room for reasonable debate regarding the exact scenarios and responses regarding climate change (I would never pretend that this is anything other than a complex topic, and that the answers will be far from clear cut and likely somewhat concerning) I would again reiterate my sentiment that – given the magnitude of the catastrophe we are facing – we have little room to indulge overly speculative and idiosyncratic ideas.
For myself, I remain open to discussions with interested, honest, and fair-minded interlocutors (though not to those who are not so) and hope that future discussion with such parties will prove fruitful.
Most of the most recent post seems fine. Couple quick comments.
I suspect some / many of the pro-nuclear people saying that non-hydro renewables will / must have a place are doing so dishonestly because of political reasons, e.g. to gain more political support for nuclear by offering a fig leaf to non-hydro renewables. This is just an unsubstantiated hunch.
I don’t know if you intend to use any of that to rebut my earlier point that Green ideology is the biggest obstacle to fixing climate change. I believe that you might intend for some of that most recent post to do so, but I don’t see how any of that would actually be a rebuttal.
Finally, I again ask you to stop repeating the common and false anti-nuclear points that you made which I have debunked here. It is unclear whether you accept the evidence that I provided as sufficient to rebut those claims of yours which I identified earlier as clearly wrong.